Tag Archives: Featured Stories

Thoughts on Silicon Valley Bank: Why the FDIC plan isn’t (but also is) a bailout; and why systemic risk remains  – by New Deal democrat There’s no big economic data being released today. Which I guess is fortunate, since we had a little kerfuffle over the weekend. Which may or may not be over. Herewith hopefully some commentary to put this in terms non-finance people can understand. The really important issue for most people outside of the...

What is it that the good folks in Idaho, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, Alabama, (13 states and counting) have against LGBTQ folks? We hear a lot of, “I believe ….”, and “god said, …, ” from them. They may well, but, for sure, he-she-they didn’t. Folks, it turns out that the same percentage of your kids are LGBTQ as are anyone else’s. Seems it is all a part of the spectrum of being humans. Speaking of which, what sort of parent would be...

I do not understand what the hell is going on regarding Silicon Valley Bank. I read something in the New York Times that seems to suggest to the no doubt completely confused me that somehow money will change hands as if uninsured deposits were insured. I have some simple questions. What happened ? What is happening now ? Why ? I guess the two key questions are 1) why are extraordinary measures being taken by the Federal Government to help...

The Fed still seems determined to bring about a recession  – by New Deal democrat As I wrote on Saturday, several coincident indicators have stabilized in the past several months (for example, Redbook consumer sales, which has been at roughly 5% YoY for 8 weeks; and payroll tax withholding, which was only up 1.2% YoY for the last 4 months of 2022, but is up 4.7% YoY for the first 9 weeks of this year). This has led to increased speculation that...

Unfortunately, this did not include the screening of “Loan Wolves.” The clip is approximately 36 minutes long. It includes Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice who I have known for over a decade. Alan has been on Angry Bear Blog multiple times. He has not given up his, the crusade seeking relief for student loans. “Loan Wolves” Writer and Director Blake Zeff has written for The Onion and Politico besides doing other things. He is the chief...

Dale Coberly talking about reforming entitlements and the impact on Social Security . . . CRFB, “The Committee For a Responsible Federal Budget”, is an organization dedicated to reducing the National Debt or federal budget deficit, so it says.  But it seems to spend most of its time calling for  “reforming entitlements,” meaning “cut Social Security” which has nothing to do with the Debt/Deficit. Social Security is paid for entirely by the...

Just finished “Lenin’s Tomb” by David Remnick. The book’s subtitle is “The last days of the Soviet empire.” At ca. 550 pages, it might seem a lot of text to devote to a few days or weeks, but that’s not what the book is really about. Remnick shows us how the history of the Soviet Union as codified by the Bolsheviks and Stalin became the foundational myth that drove that society. In the face of daily evidence that the USSR was fundamentally a...

This Is What Happens When Progressives Look the Other Way – Peter Dorman @Econospeak Recent events in Florida—the “Stop WOKE” Act, the rejection of AP African American Studies, the hostile takeover of New College—and the publication of an excellent op-ed about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in the Chronicle of Higher Education have me returning to a topic I blogged on several years ago, but in a new light. It was obvious, and I mean...

. . . called The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, and he was interviewed by Rob Johnson on the Economics & Beyond podcast.  Here’s a quote from 50:20 in the pod (my transcription, done before I saw the official transcript at the link): Now a core thesis of my book . . . is that If you want a capitalist order, and if you want democracy . . . then you must accept that the free market will have to be contained within and tempered by an active...

Extending Capital to Nature, Reducing Nature to Capital The Biden administration has announced it is inaugurating a program to incorporate the value of natural resources and ecological services into national income accounts.  The New York Times article reporting this development predictably portrays the response as divided between two camps: on the one side are environmentalists, who think this will lead to more informed decision-making, and on...