The Minsky Moment Ten Years After These days are the tenth anniversary of the biggest Minsky Moment since the Great Depression. While when it happened, most commentators mentioned Minsky and many even called it a “Minsky Moment,” most of the commentary now does not use that term and much does not even mention Minsky, much […]
Go, Secretary Mnuchin! Save The Iranian Banks! In the Sept. 14 Washington Post, Josh Rogin is all shocked and upset about a report that people in the US Treasury Department, apparently supported by, if not outright led by, Secretary Steve Mnuchin, have been stonewalling or slow-moving a memo that was ordered up by President Trump […]
W(h)ither Italy? I returned a few days ago from a conference in Italy where I spoke with some former economic advisers of the Five Star Movement (M5S), which is now in a coalition government with the hard right wing Lega, formerly the separatist Northern League, which has now gone national, appealing to southern Italy with […]
China Starts Yuan/RMB Futures Market Juan Cole reports that Reuters reports that China is establishing a commodities futures market in Shanghai that will operate in yuan/rmb. According to the report the commodity that is most expected to be traded is crude petroleum. This will put this exchange in competition with the West Texas intermediate crude […]
Trump Shafts Abe On Trade And North Korea The Washington Post (on Monday on p. A11) has a revealing story about how President Trump has essentially shafted an important world leader who may have tried harder than any other to please and appease Trump from the moment he became president, with the story ironically reporting […]
Has Trump Gone Over The Edge On Negotiating With Canada? He may well have. Facing the deadline for submitting his deal with Mexico to Congress on Friday, he did so. However, he did so without Canada signed on, the apparently intense negotiations in Washington between Canadian Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland and US Trade Representative, Robert […]
Mohammed Bin Salman Of Saudi Arabia In Trouble? This is what Juan Cole reports today from several sources. Supposedly, as I reported here earlier, even though it was supposedly denied, the Saudi ARAMCO IPO deal is off. The new reports have it that the final decision on this came from King Salman of Saudi Arabia, […]
Marrying NAFTA and The TPP: The US-Mexico “Trade Agreement” I really am not sure where to begin with this latest farce, Trump’s announcement yesterday of a supposed US-Mexico Free Trade Agreement. Of course there was the farce of him trying to make the announcement with a live phone call between him and outgoing Mexican President […]
Are We Alone In The Galaxy (Or Maybe Even The Universe?) In 1938 Orson Welles put on a radio show in New York City that dramatized the famous novel by H.G. Wells, _The War of the Worlds_. This novel is about an invasion of Planet Earth by intelligent beings from Planet Mars, with this invasion […]
Hannity as Goebbels Joseph Goebbels famously said that if you want to convince a populace of A Big Lie (fake news), then you do it by repeating it, over and over and over again. For a long time I have been keeping an eye on Hannity, reportedly nightly conversing with Trump after his show. What […]