Put that way it sounds silly. I mean isn’t ISIS simply IN various parts of Iraq and Syria and wouldn’t US involvement in something like an all out attack on ISIS mean intervening in any number of civil wars? Well that depends on how smart your lawyers are (and I am only kind of smart […]

Earlier this week I posted a post titled “Blackie, in Wantaugh, NY.”   Several people—Noni Mausa, Yves Smith (on Naked Capital), Bill H, and Dan Crawford (who made the post a Featured Story)—tried to help out. On Wednesday, Bill reported that Blackie had an approved adopter and would be picked up at the Town of Hempstead Animal […]

Janet Yellen gave a speech today at the Jackson Hole conference. Here are 3 parts from her speech that are noteworthy and somewhat ominous… 1. “For example, as I discussed earlier, if downward nominal wage rigidities created a stock of pent-up wage deflation during the economic downturn, observed wage and price pressures associated with a […]

Returning off shored money to the US was a way to create jobs politicians promised and promoted back in 2004.  But not so much was the result.  From Forbes: Many in Congress are argueing that corporations are leaving billions of dollars abroad at the expense of bringing it home to invest in jobs. However, says […]

Charles Reid explains a bit on some background for the news in Missouri: Quite properly, journalistic reaction to events in Ferguson, Missouri, has focused on the militarization of the police, on the role of racism in the killing of unarmed African-American men, and on the political disenfranchisement that allows communities like Ferguson to operate in […]

Dan here…Yves Smith reminds us on the announcement of a reported ‘biggest fine ever’ on Bank America that the deals, fines, and reporting on mortgage misconduct need careful interpretation. And a skeptical attitude. (partially re-posted…worth the trip over) by Yves Smith Bank Settlement Grade Inflation: High Bullshit to Cash Ratio in $17 Billion Bank of […]

by Joseph Joyce European Doldrums European economies are faltering.  The German economy contracted in the second quarter, as did those of France and Italy. Growth in Spain and the Netherlands was not enough to offset the slowdown in the Eurozone’s largest members.  An escalation in the confrontation with Russia would send shockwaves rippling from the […]

Part 3 of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century is the longest section of the book (230 pages out of 577), providing his analysis of inequality at the level of individuals. Notably, Piketty largely avoids the use of the familiar Gini index because, in his view, it obscures the issue by combining the effects […]

[T]here is probably no one more gung ho for Obamacare repeal than [Senate Republican nominee] Tom Cotton. He talks about it all the time. So he obviously would roll back the Arkansas version of the state’s Medicaid expansion, right? Well, he has consistently refused to say. And in a new interview this week, Cotton was pressed on […]