Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Is Barack Obama Morphing Into Dick Cheney?

Barkley Rosser reports from the world ecology conference in Rio,  Michael Klare offers a a comprehensive overview of US international political policy regarding energy. (hat tip Spencer) By Michael T. Klare,Tom Dispatch re-posted with permission from the author Is Barack Obama Morphing Into Dick Cheney? Four Ways the President Is Pursuing Cheney’s Geopolitics of Global […]

Confidence Indicators Deteriorated Significantly This Week

by Rebecca Wilder Confidence Indicators Deteriorated Significantly This Week This week national confidence surveys rolled in with just one story: the economic infection in Europe is spreading. Business confidence indicators in France and Germany declined 1.1% and 1.6%, respectively, in the month of June. In Italy consumer confidence hit another record low since 1996 of 85.3 after […]

Substantively misleading reporting on winners in oil manipulations

Yves Smith writes to blast more ‘reporting’. I also follow Angry Bear Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts whom Mark Thoma has recently been linking, who has a unique style for his thoughts, on ‘ballance’ in reporting. It isn’t until paragraph 14, when cursory readers have already checked out, that we get a mention of who really wins […]

Exchange rate pegs getting a new look?

This article at Voxeu reminded me that exchange rate pegs might come back in vogue. Voxeu has an article on the “trilemma” of ’emerging’ economies: Do sterilised interventions allow countries a way around the fundamental trilemma of international finance by providing them with a means of systematically affecting exchange rates independent of their monetary policies? […]

Report From Rio…Barkley Rosser

by Barkley Rosserre-posted from Econospeak with the authors permission Will A Thousand CEOs Save The Planet? Report From Rio Just back from presenting paper at International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE) conference in Rio that preceded the main UN Sustainable Development conference that has started today there, the Rio + 20 show.  What is going […]

To pay for the next war…we raise taxes, cut spending elsewhere?

The Armed Services full committee meeting in light of the end of the latest round of talks with Iran and harsher sanctions (oil embargo) scheduled to take effect, points us to the need to figure out how to pay for another conflict that is not quick and victorious. The Washington Post quotes Senator Leahy: At […]

German Construction Is Looking a Bit ‘Bubbly’

by Rebecca Wilder German Construction Is Looking a Bit ‘Bubbly’ Eurostat released its volume-adjusted estimate of construction for April (release here, .pdf). Over the month, Euro area construction declined 2.75% following a large 11.41% monthly increase in March. Across the countries that make monthly data available (8 countries total), Slovenia and Portugal saw the largest […]

"The Red Light District of Sorts"

by Run 75441“The Red Light District of Sorts”The Democrats and the Republicans cannot agree on much these days. Because of the inability to agree, healthcare reform is aflame with controversy and in SCOTUS waiting for a decision on its constitutionality. Stimulating the economy languishes between cutting taxes for the rich in income to create jobs […]

When the rivers run dry — the review

by David Zetland When the rivers run dry — the review re-posted with permission from author from Aguanomics  Fred Pearce is an English journalist who’s been covering water issues for 20+ years (he’s just published a book on land grabs, review to come). I read the second edition of When the rivers run dry: Water […]