Economy

And the Weak Suffer What They Must ~ Yanis Varoufakis

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Yanis Varoufakis, the fiery new Greek Finance Minister, is a Greek Economist and prominent critic of modern Global Bankster Capitalism. His new book, And The Weak Suffer What They Must?: Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future, is now available for pre-order at Powell's (and also at Amazon).

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Money

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Apparently when I was born, I was entered into this huge game, the Game. I never chose to play it. Apparently I can't opt out.

Money: There's nothing in the world so demoralizing as money.

--Sophocles (496 BC - 406 BC), Antigone

 

 

 

Restart.
 

 

 

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Saturday #FF ~ Midnight Oil Econ

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Oops, IRL stuff interfered with #FF going up on Friday. I took a wrong turn turning a long bike trip into a REAL long bike trip. Anyway, now I know to turn left there, instead of right.

Anyway, this week, MidnightOil-Econ ... though note that Midnight Oil economics does not forget that the Economy is embedded inside a broader living world ...

Four more tweets are hiding below the fold

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The "Marxism is coming back" trope

Recently in the mainstream media one now can read short essays (well, OK, they're really Ideological Guides To What You're Supposed To Think) on the idea that "Marxism" (to be distinguished here from marxism, which is "Marxism" without all of the straw man connotations) is now intellectually an Accepted Part of the Conversation. Well, sort of.

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16 states now at four-year unemployment lows, but jobs recovery is still behind past recessions

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Just as it does every month one week after it announces its estimates of unemployment and related statistics, last Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported its evaluation of the employment situation in the individual states and regions. As has been the case for much of the past four years, there is good news and bad in the numbers.

As Niraj Choksi at the Washington Post points out, 16 states now have unemployment rates lower than they have been in four years:

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Go Ahead, Celebrate — You're Celebrating Failure

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Not you at Voices on the Square. You know who.

Well it seems this continuing debacle every 3 months has ceased, for now. However, I really can't get over this pathetic celebration over the really low bar involved with regard to avoiding what I call a political default on the public debt. This is the same embarrassing type of celebration that ensued in 2011. We need to get real. Despite the government being opened up again, there's nothing to celebrate. We've already lost. After all, the debt ceiling was a precious gift Obama bestowed onto John Boehner in the 2010 tax deal as he put his full faith in Speaker John Boehner hands, as he took the full faith and credit of the United States hostage.

Of course, it was a deal struck between both of them to put who they called the "extremists" of both their parties in check, for a grand bargain like in 1983 when Tip O'Neil and Ronald Reagan cut social security. President Obama and Speaker Boehner weren't fooling everyone, though. Just those involved in their hyper deluded, hyper partisan, claptrap. To some of us, this was entirely predictable and preventable. Now people are suffering because some people, blinded by their hyper-loyal partisan illusions, couldn't or didn't want to see what was there. Maybe their lack of sight reveals they don't really care? It doesn't matter though. This will continue to be what we go through when some of this crap continues again in 4 months in February, regardless.

This austerity government will reopen at sequester levels of funding; a sequester I predicted would be born out by the stupid Super Committee from the super austerity Budget Control Act of 2011, which I saw was inevitable since the 2010 tax deal led to the first, now ongoing, debt ceiling debacle; a miniature crisis to crisis government with no plans to invest in its citizens' future. Anything else is possible though, from government shutdowns over the false prospect of defunding Obamacare, to any austerian Senator or Congressman using the threat of default for whatever demands they want.

We, the so called professional left as the White House derisively called us, warned about this. Anyone who denied this can either apologize now or forever restrain from speaking about matters regarding politics, civics, political deals, and the debt ceiling. We told all of you back in 2011 around this same time when that debacle was coming to its end — until this one and the next one 4 months down the line — that this was no victory.

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President Obama Gave Speaker Boehner the Debt Ceiling to Play With in 2010

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Disclaimer: This forum rules like the moderators and contributors.

And here we are again! It started in 2010. The Bush tax cuts were about to expire. There was leverage to negotiate a debt ceiling raise or to just let them expire. How do I know there was leverage? I know Republicans like tax cuts for the rich, and there was a deal for the purpose of extending them with Republican votes. It passed with those Republican votes, which led to this whole thing because there was no debt ceiling raise included.

Maybe others are unaware of this? I don't know. It doesn't matter though; the uninformed shouldn't dictate fantasy as reality in a reality based community. This is the actual reality and why we are worried about a global financial calamity with regard to a possible political default on the public debt, which is a choice and otherwise impossible for a sovereign currency issuer.

Obama on the Debt Limit — December 2010

Q Mr. President, thank you. How do these negotiations affect negotiations or talks with Republicans about raising the debt limit? Because it would seem that they have a significant amount of leverage over the White House now, going in. Was there ever any attempt by the White House to include raising the debt limit as a part of this package?
 

THE PRESIDENT: When you say it would seem they’ll have a significant amount of leverage over the White House, what do you mean?
 

Q Just in the sense that they’ll say essentially we’re not going to raise the — we’re not going to agree to it unless the White House is able to or willing to agree to significant spending cuts across the board that probably go deeper and further than what you’re willing to do. I mean, what leverage would you have –
 

THE PRESIDENT: Look, here’s my expectation — and I’ll take John Boehner at his word — that nobody, Democrat or Republican, is willing to see the full faith and credit of the United States government collapse, that that would not be a good thing to happen. And so I think that there will be significant discussions about the debt limit vote. That’s something that nobody ever likes to vote on. But once John Boehner is sworn in as Speaker, then he’s going to have responsibilities to govern. You can’t just stand on the sidelines and be a bomb thrower.

You know, we on the left knew what this would lead to. You don't trust John Boehner with the full faith in credit of the United States unless one is completely clueless or an economic nihilist. The resulting signs we are starting to see of a financial panic in response to the prospects of a default on top of the ongoing depression, the jobs crisis, the continuing climate and ecological crisis all converging into one huge Epochal crisis, point to a special kind of disdain for the public that all our elected leaders have for us. I mean, we have enough problems without adding to them through a self induced global financial then economic crisis caused by the President's pursuit of a deficit terrorist grand bargain whether through incompetence or outright corruption.

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Economic Populist: How Fixed Interest Payment Consol Bonds Avoid A Default

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I have talked about the broader economic/historic and political/ethical dimensions of Consol Bonds, but this diary is simply about how a certain type of Consol Bonds can be used to avoid default.

What do I mean by "Fixed Interest Payment" Consol Bonds? I mean a bond without a maturity date, that specifies the dollar amount to be paid as interest twice a year. These would be sold on the open market, just as we sell ordinary 10yr bonds. Since the dollar value of the interest payment is specified, and there is no maturity date, no Face Value is required, and so no Face Value is specified.

Consol Bonds are actually a quite old-fashioned type of bond, widely covered in elementary financial mathematics because of their simplicity.

The point of a Consol Bond was that there is no maturity date. Instead, the government just pays the interest, and if they want to retire the debt, they buy the Consol Bond back from the open market. "Consol" stands for "Consolidated", since they were originally used by the British, starting in Colonial Days before the French and Indian war to "consolidate" a number of different bonds with different maturity dates.

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