Real Reasons Bankers Don’t Like Basel’s Rules: Clive Crook – Bloomberg. Why bankers’ whining about higher equity requirements is just that: A much-cited paper by Stanford’s Anat Admati and colleagues — “Fallacies, Irrelevant Facts, and Myths in the Discussion of Capital Regulation: Why Bank Equity Is Not Expensive” — should have ended this debate once […]

I’ve gone on about this elsewhere, but thought I should bring it up front and center here. While everyone hyperventilates about government debt, they don’t seem to be aware of the massively greater load of private debt, and its spectacular runup compared to government debt: This from Steve Keen’s latest. (It’s not very long. There […]

I’m stealing this headline directly from Sandwichman. He sez: No it doesn’t. It almost never is. To pay back government debt, you have to run a budget surplus, and while there may be modest surpluses from time to time, they don’t add up to more than a minuscule fraction of all the accumulated debt. But […]

A couple of our gentle Bears have suggested that I repost this over here. Ask and ye shall receive. It’s a good complement to and demonstration of the point I tried to make in my last post. From Mike Konczal: Their model is obviously telling them that whatever (non-)actions they’re taking at the moment will solve […]

Let’s start with the basics: Increased inflation results in (in a sense, is) a wealth transfer from creditors to debtors. Debtors get to pay off their loans in less-valuable dollars — dollars that can’t buy as much real-world stuff, stuff that humans can consume, that they value. If you’re holding a hundred million dollars in bonds — […]

Let’s start with two basic facts: • Governments in all thriving, prosperous countries tax/spend 25–50% of those countries’ GDP (averaging around 40%). • Governments in non-prosperous countries — those that haven’t suffered a recent crash in the numerator/GDP — are all below that range. There is not a single thriving, prosperous country that does not […]

In my first post here as an official Bear, I want to start by thanking Dan Crawford and the rest of the Clan of the Angry Bear for inviting me to join the party. I’ve been a regular lurker and occasional commenter for years, and have learned a huge amount from the experts here. I’m […]