Political Economy category archive
The Austerians 0
Things are working out nicely in Greece.
Ta Nea, a leading Greek daily, has described conditions here as similar to those of Weimar Germany. Vassiliki Georgiadou, a political science professor in Athens, likewise calls it “an atmosphere like in the 1930s in Germany against the Jews and their businesses.”
No Speculation, Doing the Boston Jump Dept. 4
Reg Henry jumps himself to some conclusions. A snippet:
It is a tall jump to the next conclusion, but I’m up for it: Those who just hate and those others who act on their hate in murderous ways are swimming in the same swamp. And, yes, some of those who jumped immediately to prejudiced conclusions about the Boston Marathon bombing don’t realize that their selective disdain for humanity helps maintain, even if only a little, the habitat where killers flourish.
Jump to the link for the rest.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
About the same.
(snip)
The four-week moving average, a less volatile measure than the weekly figures, rose to 361,250 last week from 358,500.
Undeliverable 0
Phil Terrana has a theory about why Congress obligated the postal service to pay up its pension fund for 75 years into the future: it’s all about the privatization con, another attempt to sell off the public’s assets for the personal gain of a few masters of the universe.
People keep asking why Congress doesn’t put a stop to this, or postpone it or reduce it to a more manageable figure.
The reason is that the people who put this into law don’t want the Postal Service to survive. They want to break the back of the Postal Service so that the only answer will be privatization, and some big investors with a lot of money will get their hands on a business that goes into every home and business in America.
Sequestrian Dressage 0
No trip to Pensacola–JROTC units condemned to compete via video:
Oh, the humanity.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
The only constant is Bloomberg’s need for new experts.
(snip)
The four-week moving average, a less volatile measure than the weekly figures, rose to 358,000 last week from 355,000.
The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits fell by 12,000 to 3.08 million in the week ended March 30.
The story points out that it’s difficult to correct for the effects of a movable feast, such as Easter.
Unseen 2
Dan Froomkin wonders why poverty, which is all around us (just look around), does not make the news. A nugget:
“Poverty exists in a wealthy country largely as a result of political choices, not as a result of pure economics,” argues Sasha Abramsky, a journalist whose upcoming book is called “The American Way of Poverty.” “The U.S. poverty rate is higher than most other developed nations, and the only way you can square that is there are political choices being made—or not being made—that accept a level of poverty that most wealthy democracies have said is unacceptable. We make these policy choices that perpetuate poverty, and then because poverty is so extreme, it becomes impolite to talk about.”
In this part of the world, about the only significant news coverage of poverty comes when a tent city gets cleared.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
My gut tells me that sequestrian dressage is starting to hit a rhythm, but it’s not mentioned in the report.
(snip)
The four-week average of claims rose to 354,250 from 343,000.
(snip)
Economists’ estimates in the Bloomberg survey ranged from claims of 330,000 to 400,000.
The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits fell by 8,000 to 3.06 million in the week ended March 23.
I don’t have as much faith in monetary policy as Ben Bernanke seems to. From later in the story:
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his colleagues reiterated March 20 they will press on with monetary easing until the labor market outlook improves “substantially.”
Growing demand will help to sustain employment amid concern about the impact of the automatic federal budget cuts, or sequestration, which were triggered last month as lawmakers failed to reach a compromise on ways to reduce the nation’s deficit.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Disappointing, but look for more of this as the evul fedrul guvmint sequesters its employees.
(snip)
The less-volatile four-week moving average climbed to 343,000, up from 340,750, which was the lowest since 2008.
The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits fell by 27,000 to 3.05 million in the week ended March 16, the fewest since June 2008. The continuing claims figure doesn’t include Americans receiving extended unemployment benefits under federal programs.
Pirates of the Mediterranean 0
Der Spiegel attempts to clarify what’s going on in Cyprus. The short version is that the banks blew it (sound familiar?) and now want the people who trusted them to pay the price. If you are puzzled by the headlines, I recommend the article highly.
A nugget on why there is pressure to tax the depositors–they are the only persons the banks have not yet screwed:
- The bank’s investors have already lost massive shares of their investments. In the fall of 2011, the three biggest financial institutions still had a market capitalization of €2.4 billion, but it has since fallen to €500 million. Since mid-2012, the Cypriot government has owned 84 percent of Laiki Bank. By then, private investors were only still in possession of shares that held a total value of several million euros. Major shareholders at other banks also have relatively little to contribute to any rescue package. Just take billionaire Russian investor Dmitry Rybolovlev, who owns 5 percent of the Bank of Cyprus. In recent months, he has had to sit back and watch as the value of his holding shrank to around €20 million.
- Holders of bank bonds were to be next in line to be held liable for the bailout. They lent money to the financial institutions and had to assume that, in the worst case, they wouldn’t get it back. In a passage that attracted little attention over the weekend, the Euro Group also announced that second-tier bonds would also be seized as part of the restructuring program. Those possessing Tier-1 guaranteed bonds would not be hit. Still, it is doubtful that this channel would suffice to raise the €5.8 billion needed. Cypriot banks have long relied on the gigantic deposits held in their accounts and have not needed to issue large quantities of bonds to raise cash. As such, there is a paucity of bonds that could now be seized as part of a restructuring program.
- This leaves the depositors. This is by far the largest single source of potential money. Statistics collected by Greece’s central bank suggest that some €68 billion is deposited in Cypriot banks. Around €25 billion of that sum originated from foreign depositors, a large share of them from Russia and Ukraine. This is where the so-called “one-off stability levy” rejected on Tuesday by the Cypriot parliament was supposed to be applied.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Not too bad, but sequestration . . . .
(snip)
The four-week moving average of claims, a less-volatile measure, dropped to a five-year low of 339,750 from 347,250.
Honest Books vs. Dishonest Books 0
Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog, where JMAshby points out:
The Dialectic 0
PoliticalProf has a theory.
The Party of Privilege 0
Robyn Blumner remembers that the Davis-Bacon Act, which mandates that federal contractors pay the prevailing wage in their areas, was sponsored by a Republican Representative and Senator, then signed by a Republican president.
That was then.
That was one of Romney’s top priorities. Because in the United States, where wages have stagnated for more than 30 years, nothing is more important for the president than to try to erode worker pay even more. Take that, 47 percenters.
But Romney was not breaking new plutocratic ground, just toeing the party line. Today’s GOP believes its solemn duty is to mow down workers’ rights and wage protections. The onslaught is incredibly well organized, particularly at the state level where the well-manicured hand of the American Legislative Exchange Council is all over it.
The Republican Party, now more than ever the party of privilege.
Read the rest.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
A little better.
(snip)
Those people collecting emergency and extended payments increased by about 136,500 to 1.92 million in the week ended Feb. 23.