The PolyCapitalist

On the Topic of Financial Collapse Fear Mongering

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Wed, 30 May 2012 04:00:31 PDT

"Ireland is in a death spiral" -FT "After the November President election the U.S. is facing a fiscal cliff" -Federal Reserve staff "Eurogeddon!" -The PolyCapitalist On and on go the warnings of cataclysm and pending financial doom. One frustration among some of us with economics training is with the financial collapse scare mongering that has gone on over the past several years. Technical

On The Problem With Postponing the Inevitable

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Mon, 28 May 2012 16:15:17 PDT

Today's Eurogeddon must read.

Lagarde Sacrifices Herself to Help Greece's Pro-Bailout New Democracy Party?

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Wed, 30 May 2012 19:50:12 PDT

The Eurogeddon chess game is getting desperate so don't be surprised to see a few political/PR curveballs over the next few weeks in front of the 17 June Greek election runoff. Case in point this weekend's snarky comment from the typically ladylike Madame Lagarde. But before we get to that, some background: The single worst thing than can happen from the perspective of the Troika (the IMF, EU,

Video: Happy Memorial Day

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Mon, 28 May 2012 04:11:40 PDT

Memorial Day is a time for Americans to say thank you to those who have served and are serving in the U.S. armed forces, and to remember in particular those who have been killed or injured in the line of duty. If you know someone in the U.S. service it takes just a few moments to say thank you and it really is appreciated by those who serve. And even if you don't agree with the Afghanistan

Greece QOTD: "Papadreou was clueless. Papademos was complicit. Where does blame really lie?"

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Wed, 23 May 2012 05:32:46 PDT

Atta boy, AEP.

Greece Can Physically Print Its Own Euros Inspite of ECB 'Choke' Efforts

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Mon, 28 May 2012 11:41:35 PDT

Euro printing press As the long ago predicted Greek 'bank jog' accelerates there is much talk in the econoblogosphere of the Greek banking system being 'choked off' by the ECB. If this is in fact the Brussels/Frankfurt plan to force Greece out of the euro there is a perhaps not insignificant obstacle to this strategy: as noted in this post last year, Greece has its own euro printing press.

Young People CAN and ARE Making a Difference in Europe

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Tue, 08 May 2012 19:01:27 PDT

Getting more young people (and women) into positions of political power is a good thing. Alexis Tsipras, leader of Syriza Whether you agree or disagree with the politics of 37-year old Alexis Tsipras, the leader of a leftist-Greek coalition which surprised in the weekend election, he has demonstrated that not every member of the next generation is politically impotent. While we would not

Happy Free Positive PR for UK Banks Day!

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Tue, 08 May 2012 18:59:26 PDT

One somewhat peculiar difference between the U.S. and UK is how in the UK (and Ireland) official public holidays are referred to as 'bank holidays'. From Wikipedia: A bank holiday is a public holiday in the United Kingdom or a colloquialism for public holiday in Ireland. The first official bank holidays were the four days named in the Bank Holidays Act 1871, but today the term is colloquially

Video: A Simple, 8-Minute Explanation of What's Wrong With Mainstream Economics

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Sun, 06 May 2012 19:36:10 PDT

Below is NOVA's longer but also recommended explanation of what's wrong with mainstream economics.

Video: Ferguson, Rattner, Murray, etc. on What's Happened to the American Dream?

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:17:25 PDT

Video: Review of 4-Part Frontline Financial Crisis Series 'Money, Power, and Wall St.'

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Sun, 06 May 2012 18:06:00 PDT

The PolyCapitalist is kicking May off with a number of must watch videos, and this epic 4-part Frontline special follows the crisis from what is arguably the point of its genesis, a 1994 JP Morgan retreat in Boca Raton, Florida which of led to the creation of the first credit default swaps. Frontline has done an incredible job getting many of the key players and insiders, including a number of

Video: El-Erian, Buiter, Warsh, etc. on Economic Growth

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Wed, 02 May 2012 04:16:04 PDT

This is another excellent panel from the Milken Institute Conference. It has a somewhat more investment focus than the previous one posted with discussion/predictions on the Eurozone (Greece in or out), elections, interes rates, etc.

Video: Raghuram Rajan, Niall Ferguson, etc. on The Future of Capitalism

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Wed, 02 May 2012 04:00:53 PDT

This video from the Milken Institute Conference unfortunately appears to begin after the panel has already begun and cuts abruptly, but still features a very good discussion of economic issues in the U.S., Asia, and Europe.

How Some U.S. States Subsidize Other States

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 05:11:01 PDT

With the political battle over government spending raging across the globe the story of how some U.S. states are subsidizing others is getting more attention. On this topic, here is a good post from the NY Times Economix blog with several useful links, as well as the below chart showing how much extra federal spending a state receives beyond each federal tax dollar paid into the central

Video: Debt and Redemption Documentary

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 07:52:40 PDT

At the risk of sounding trite it's often helpful to put a face and voice behind the news. This short documentary by VPRO, which does excellent work overall btw, has some good coverage of the fallout from the dealings by both small and large Italian municipalities in derivatives like interest rate swaps. And if terms like 'derivative' turn you off but you're still interested in learning more

'Government Bank Bailout Was Profitable' Myth Receives Another Nail in the Coffin

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 04:58:01 PDT

Bravo to Jonathan Weil of Bloomberg, who uses the U.S. Treasury's own footnotes and figures to dispel the myth that the bank bailouts were profitable to taxpayers here.

Video: Simon Johnson's White House Burning

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:27:30 PDT

Why is the U.S. Government Still Hiding Financial Crisis Documents?

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 08:31:18 PDT

Here here to former Lazard partner turned Wall St. author/historian William Cohan and his fighting the good fight to obtain public documents from the U.S. government related to financial firms such as Goldman Sachs.

Enemies: A History of the FBI Podcast by Pulitzer Prize Winner Time Weiner

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 17:38:01 PDT

An excellent talk on his new book about the FBI from the author of Legacy of Ashes, the must read Pulitzer Prize winning history of the CIA. Regarding the FBI, here is Wired's story of one tech company's efforts to prevent the Bureau from obtaining information about its customers, via a National Security Letter (NSL), which legally prevents those customers from being informed by the company

Too Crooked to Fail

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:14:10 PDT

With the vampire squid having been dealt perhaps the long awaited, but much need mortal PR blow this week, the Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi has transitioned his sights on Too Bigger to Fail Bank of America: At least Bank of America got its name right. The ultimate To Big to Fail bank really is America, a hypergluttonous ward of the state whose limitless fraud and criminal conspiracies we'll

Video: Niall Ferguson's China: Triumph and Turmoil

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 17:27:05 PDT

Link to video here. (Non UK-based viewers will need to use a proxy.) For more on the subject of China and the West here is Standpoint's recent interview with Niall and Dambisa Moyo.

Video: Michael Lewis on 'Financial Innovation'

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 05:39:38 PST

Video: Niall Ferguson Interviews Peter Thiel

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:55:51 PST

Video: Israeli Apartheid

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 19:24:45 PDT

As the U.S. contemplates joining Israel in a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities I wonder how many Americans are aware of or stop to think about Israeli apartheid? The topic of Israeli apartheid in occupied Palestinian territories is a controversial subject which doesn't get much public attention in the U.S., but below are some excerpts of interviews with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's

Video: Alex Salmond's LSE Talk on Scottish Independence

noreply@blogger.com (The PolyCapitalist) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 16:45:35 PST

Below is the video, and the podcast can be heard here. Salmond makes a pretty persuasive case and I wouldn't be surprised if, given enough time to make it, we see an independent Scotland someday. Speaker(s): Alex Salmond MSP Chair: Professor Paul Kelly Recorded on 15 February 2012 in Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building. Alex Salmond is the first minister of Scotland. He was born