Tag Archives: Debt

Review and critique of the latest OECD World Economic Outlook, from a Marxian POV. Useful. The key for me, as readers of this blog know, is what is happening to the profitability of capital in the major economies. If profitability is rising, then corporate investment and economic growth will follow – but also vice versa. But if profitability and profits are falling, debt accumulated will become a major burden. Eventually the zombies will start to go bankrupt, spreading across sectors and...

As many of you know, I have spent much of the last seven years explaining to anyone who will listen that banks do not "lend out" deposits or reserves. Rather, they create both loan assets and matching deposit liabilities "from nothing" by means of double entry accounting entries. Creating money with a stroke of the pen (or a few taps on a computer keyboard) is what banks do.But this does not mean that the money that banks create comes from nowhere. It doesn't. It is only created when they...

Randy Wray gets a mention.St. Louts Post-DispatchNicklaus: China's worry about 'Minsky moment' may be a good sign David Nicklaus, business columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Apparently, measuring the levels of two molecules—an individual’s C-reactive protein and fibrinogen (as in the charts above)—and matching them against their socioeconomic position starts to reveal the hidden mechanisms connecting social inequality and health. And the missing link turns out to be stress. Debt is a major cause of stress, and a rent-based economy is based on debt. Poverty is another major cause of stress, as is financial and economic precariousness. As more people join the...

On the evening of Friday, September 22nd, the credit ratings agency Moody's downgraded the UK's credit rating. Admittedly, it was only by one notch. But coming as it did hard on the heels of Theresa May's grand speechin Florence, it was a shattering blow.  Credit ratings agencies lost much of their lustre in the financial crisis of 2008, when they were revealed to have been complicit in the mispricing of complex financial derivatives – the “toxic waste” that brought down some of the...

The idiots at S&P are at it again, downgrading China's "debt." This asinine rating agency does not understand the distinction between a currency issuing nation (of which, China is one) and a country that doesn't issue currency or, that has debt denominated in another currency.All of China's "debt" is denominated in yuan, which they have the monopoly power to issue. There is zero risk that China wouldn't be able to meet its obligations in yuan.Anyway, what do you expect from a firm...

A contrarian view. Idiosyncratic WhiskLeverage is not a sign of risk seeking, a continuing seriesKevin Erdmann

I’ve just written a blog post about the fiscal situation of Canada’s ‘oil rich’ provinces (i.e., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador). It consists of a summary of key points raised at a PEF-sponsored panel at this year’s Annual Conference of the Canadian Economics Association. Points raised in the blog post include the following: -The price of oil is impossible to accurately predict, and there’s no guarantee it will rise to past levels. -Each of Canada’s ‘oil rich’ provinces...

In May I presented at a SYMPOSIUM | Greece, Out of The Crisis: Debt-End or Dead-End. The presentation I gave (via Video Conference) was entitled “Why the Greek debt should be cancelled. It was odious in the first place.” It can be viewed via this link.

Review of Steve Keen's "Can we void another financial crisis?" | Michael Hudson Your access to this service has been temporarily limited. Please try again in a few minutes. (HTTP response code 503) Reason: Exceeded the maximum global requests per minute for crawlers or humans. Important note for site admins: If you are the administrator of this website note that your access has been limited because you broke one of the Wordfence blocking rules. The reason your access was limited is:...