Thomas Palley, Open Society Institute pontificator emeritus cum DC-cocktail laude, mocks himself best when he’s most honest. As do most political people.
Defending the Bernanke Fed
Filed under: U.S. Policy, Uncategorized — Administrator @ 6:37 am
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has recently been on the receiving end of significant criticism for recent monetary policy. One critique [...]
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“With Bold Steps, Fed Chief Quiets Some Criticism”:
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“It has been a really head-spinning range of unprecedented and bold actions,” said Charles W. Calomiris, professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School, referring to the Fed’s lending activities. “That is exactly as it should be. But I’m not saying that it’s without some cost and [...]
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During a somewhat heated argument with some Jewish friends over Israel’s recent backstabbing of the US, a national security hobbyist recommended the following article as a defense of recent Israeli policy. Phrases which jumped out at me are highlighted in bold.
Hizbollah’s Increased Strength: Risks and Opportunities for Israel, INSS Insight No. 57, May 26, [...]
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Sunday night, May 11, the Israeli army was poised to strike Hizballah. The Shiite militia was winding up its takeover of West Beirut and battling pro-government forces in the North. When he opened the regular cabinet meeting Sunday, May 11, prime minister Ehud Olmert had already received the go-ahead from Washington for a military strike [...]
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Posted in dawn to decadence, doomsterism, economy, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, politics, shitigroup, volatility, wall street on May 18, 2008 | No Comments »
The credit crisis has separated true libertarians from phony libertarians, and separated true liberals from phony liberals.
The phony liberals have inadvertently mocked themselves throughout the entire credit crisis, manning the barricades to defend the greatest act of socialism for the rich in US history. Ditto for supposed “libertarians,” eg Robert Rubin, Bruce Kovner, and the [...]
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Exclusive from US sources: Washington urged Israel to seize opportunity and clobber Iran-backed Hizballah
May 18, 2008, 2:51 PM (GMT+02:00)
DEBKAfile’s US sources disclose that Saturday, May 10, Washington gave Israel the go-ahead to attack Hizballah during its takeover of Beirut and knock out its capabilities in the south. The IDF was given the chance to [...]
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Bernanke wingman Frederic Mishkin today, parroting Barney Frank:
I would like to emphasize the importance of regulatory policy. Monetary policy–that is, the setting of overnight interest rates–is already challenged by the task of managing both price stability and maximum sustainable employment. As a result, it falls to regulatory policies and supervisory practices to help strengthen the [...]
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Posted in dawn to decadence on May 15, 2008 | 3 Comments »
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/prison-nation.html
… Building and managing prisons, and locking people up, have become major facets of government power in our time, and it is long past time [...]
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Net loss for the first quarter of 2008 was $151 million, compared to a net loss of $2.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007. Improved results reflect reduced losses related to a change in the guarantee obligation valuation methodology implemented under SFAS No. 157, “Fair Value Measurements” (SFAS 157), which better aligns revenue recognition [...]
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[edited and tempered a bit--EC]
I’ve wanted to talk about something that’s been simmering for a long time in my mind, namely the obvious institutional dysfunction of the West in the face of Muslim, particularly Shia, tribal fortitude.
There are two kinds of societies: unstructured, tribal societies, and structured, institutional societies. The Bush Administration’s Iraq odyssey has [...]
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You should tell them that the Rubin- and Krugman-endorsed bailout of the US financial sector has cost $475 billion in Fed stocks of US Treasuries. $1,500 for every man, woman and child in the United States.
Granted, those Treasuries have been swapped for MBS. But if it weren’t for the price support provided by the Federal [...]
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When you leave US policy in the hands of the surrender monkeys at State, the result is that a few even more narcissistic clones of Strobe Talbott puff up their images as The Great Peacemakers, The Great Negotiators, the lone doves standing between us and Armageddon … while our few credible allies, be they in [...]
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Regular finance-focused readers have probably noticed that I’ve neglected economic commentary recently. That’s because 1) there hasn’t been much net marginal information recently to clarify what I see right now (monstrous reflation in the West, looming monstrous deflation in the East, looming war in the Mid-East, commodities as The Big Thing through late July). 2) [...]
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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s situation is serious and problematic, and it is doubtful that he will be able to continue to serve as prime minister, a senior law enforcement official was quoted by Channel 1 as saying on Friday, after Olmert was questioned under caution by police over what are believed to be new suspicions [...]
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Forget about NYC ever recapturing London’s financial crown. What sane hedge fund manager would de-privatize all his information, and submit to “surveillance” by the very Praetorians who have exacerbated every shock of the last 20 years?
Treasury eyes stronger powers for Fed
By Gillian Tett in London and Krishna Guha in Washington
Published: April 29 2008 23:23 | [...]
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I have always thought that there’s something uniquely soporifying about DC that makes most who live there especially complacent and/or ignorant, kind of like the lead plumbing of many “established” Roman cities poisoned most urban dwellers into senility by age 55.
George Will, though, gets it. He has just enough of a flicker of cynicism for [...]
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I grow more sympathetic to “Arabist” alternatives to the current Middle East equilibrium with every passing day. Israel conspicuously wastes time and money instead of doing what it obviously needs to do to defend itself. If Israel is too weak to stand up for itself, it is not worth anybody’s time.
… Netanyahu accused the Olmert [...]
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The bailout of Bear Stearns was, in effect, a bailout of JPMorgan Chase.
Chase wrote the most credit default swaps of anyone. They also had by far the largest number of open but uncleared swaps (i.e., JPMC sells one side of the swap to a counterparty, but cannot spin off its own side — overwhelmingly, the [...]
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I will let the idiocy speak for itself.
The Inflation Solution to the Housing Mess
By JOHN H. MAKIN
April 14, 2008; Page A15
The policy alternatives in the post-housing-bubble world are painfully unpleasant. In my view, the least bad option is for the Federal Reserve to print money to help stabilize housing prices and financial markets. Yes, use [...]
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