Professor Roger E. Farmer proposed in his book Prosperity for All (link to my review) that governments should set up a body to control equity prices as a means to smooth the economic cycle. In this article, I explain why a government could not hope to control the level of stock prices in a meaningful sense.... Bond Economics Understanding Why Governments Cannot Use Stock Prices As A Policy ToolBrian Romanchuk
Read More »Links — 5 June 2018
Michael Roberts BlogInequality, poverty and populismMichael Roberts Boston Review The Market Police JW Mason | Assistant Professor of Economics, John Jay College, City University of New York The Political Economy of DevelopmentMichael Hudson on Adam SmithNick Johnson
Read More »David Malone – The Steady Enmity of Powerful People
“Crime doesn’t pay.” Actually it does, handsomely. If you are a banker or large financial player, it pays wonderfully. You get filthy rich committing the crimes and after…you continue to get filthy rich. What doesn’t pay is reporting crime. Not long ago I read a rather good book about a small number of honest people who did not understand this dirty fact. It was a book telling the stories of the handful of honest and tragically idealistic insiders who blew the whistle about banking fraud...
Read More »The so-called dollar shortage
Another ridiculous and ignorant meme by the same folks who said QE would cause hyperinflation.
Read More »Bill Mitchell — Oh Scotland, don’t you dare! – Part 1 & 2
This is Part 2 in my two-part series analysing the 354-page report from the Scottish Growth Commission – Scotland – the new case for optimism: A strategy for inter-generational economic renaissance (released May 25, 2018). In Part 1, I considered their approach to fiscal rules and concluded, that in replicating the rules that the European Commission oversees as part of the Stability and Growth Pact, the newly independent Scotland would be biasing its policy settings towards austerity and...
Read More »Paul Waldman — Inevitably, Trump Declares He Is Above the Law
Making it official. Absolute power, that is. I remind you of this history [of Richard Nixon] because over the weekend, The New York Timespublished a letter from President Trump's lawyers to special counsel Robert Mueller, which includes this stunning passage: It remains our position that the President's actions here, by virtue of his position as the chief law enforcement officer, could neither constitutionally nor legally constitute obstruction because that would amount to him obstructing...
Read More »Zero Hedge — Clapper: The U.S. Meddled In Foreign Elections And Conducted Regime Change In The “Best Interests Of The People”
James Clapper admits the obvious and explains it based on liberal ideology that justifies interventionism counter to international law on "moral" grounds.This is a recipe for making things up. The institutional rule of law exists to obviate the arbitrary rule of men.But American exceptionalism puts the US above the law.Zero HedgeClapper: The U.S. Meddled In Foreign Elections And Conducted Regime Change In The "Best Interests Of The People"See also at ZHGoldman: If Trump Wants To Win A Trade...
Read More »Lars P. Syll — From Wicksell to Le Bourva and MMT
Some history of economics in light of economic history. The basis of MMT in accounting and balance sheets is not new, not is its operational approach to money. What is new is that those writing previous to the collapse of Bretton Woods when Nixon shut the gold window for settlement of international trade were dealing not dealing with the current monetary system. FDR had taken the dollar off gold decades earlier. MMT is an upgrade to previous thinking that is based on the new...
Read More »Jack Matlock — Musings … “Russiagate” Hysteria
Hits the major points. "Insanity." JackMatlock.comMusings … “Russiagate” Hysteria Jack Matlock | U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991See also Unsurprisingly, the picture of Russia in the West, in the media and elsewhere, has become very dark; a revanchist state and kleptocratic autocracy, a regime sustained by a combination of propaganda and fear, a direct military threat to its neighbours, intent on subverting and undermining the West. This picture has taken...
Read More »Paul Antonopoulos — HUGE Juncker Statement: EUROPE MUST STOP ATTACKING RUSSIA
In a major development, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said it was time for the European Union (EU) to reconnect with Russia and stop “attacking” it, in striking contrast to the US which have placed increasing accusations and sanctions against Moscow. These statements are in concert with a swiftly developing trend that the Center for Syncretic Studies, Belgrade, has been forecasting since 2014, where the EU will carve an independent course from the Atlanticism of the US....
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