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

Giacomino Grilli

Translated Jiminy Crickets. Really translated. Man, covering this Grillo dude is a full time job.  I figured I should check what he said today.  He has a new idea — Prime Minister Grillo so since the election (monday) he’s said 1) “Niente inciuci.”  Translated: “No deals.”  Really translated “The old discredited parties have to form […]

Next step to citizenship

Via Crooks and Liars comes notice of this proposal for corporate/business voting right and elected official in municipal elections,  except for school elections (hat tip Dan B.): Rep. Steve Lavin has introduced HB485, A BILL FOR AN ACT ENTITLED: “AN ACT REVISING ELIGIBILITY TO VOTE IN MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS AND TO FILE FOR CANDIDACY FOR MUNICIPAL ELECTED […]

Senate Confirms Lew at Treasury

by Linda Beale Senate Confirms Lew at Treasury The US Senate confirmed Jacob Lew as Treasury secretary by a 71 to 26 vote (with 20 Republicans voting with Democrats) late Wednesday.  See Jeremy Peters,Senate, in a more affable mode, backs Treasury nominee, New York Times (Sept. 27, 2013). I’ve covered my reservations about Jack Lew […]

Warren questions Benanke on ‘too big to fail’

Via Bloomberg comes this snippet from testimony between Senator Warren and Ben Bernanke.  Follow the link as the embed does not seem to work. Partial Transcript via Global Economic Trends Warren: These big financial institutions are getting cheaper borrowing to the tune of $83 billion in a single year, simply because people believe government would […]

Dr. Richard Wolff on the Sequester

I watched  Dr. Wolff (Professor emeritus, UMass) on this past week  episode with Bill Moyers.   At the end of this show, Mr. Moyers invited the viewers to submit questions to Dr. Wolf who has agreed to return in a couple of weeks to answer them. Here is he with an interview by Julianna Forlano of […]

Does Saving "Fund" Investment?

If Asymptosis has any tiny claim to any important influence, it might be that anonymous and magisterial commenter JKH used the comments section here to first bruit his insight (both tautological and profound) that S = I + (S – I). He revisited that construct and concept again recently, and I’ll leave it to you […]

Racial Entitlements. Such As the Right to Vote.

Justice Scalia provided the most jarring comment throughout the lengthened argument.  Belittling the government argument that the reenacted law was passed by a unanimous vote in the Senate, Scalia set off in a lengthy counter-argument, saying that made no difference because members of Congress would not take the political risk of undoing what he called […]

You Can Fool Most of the People Most of the Time

At least on certain issues. I’m not inherently a great pessimist, but with few exceptions each passing month for over a decade now has seen my optimism whither, at least a little.  So I can’t help but see the manure-colored lining in this otherwise rosy, fluffy cloud. Steve Benen reports that according to the new […]

Europeans, Republicans Dreaming Up New Ways to Destroy Global Economy

While we are busy paying attention to the 550th edition of Republican-caused fake crises (aka the sequester), a much more real crisis is brewing in the Eurozone. Richard Field at Trust Your Instincts flags a Reuters report that that Eurozone regulators are strongly considering a proposal to make not just investors in Cyprus banks pay […]