Anyone have a link to the actual Debt Audit Commission report that has Ecuador deciding to default on its illegal debt? None of the news sites that talks about it seems to know of a copy on the web. (Spanish ok, English preferred.)

by cactus Inflation, Deflation… Where The Heck Are We Going? Some folks are telling we are going to have deflation, what with the economy contracting and the vast disappearance of tons of cash through the implosion in value of assets that weren’t really worth what Goldman, Welfare, Queen & Sachs and the rest of ’em […]

rdan (Posted a little late but for comment on the usefulness of such a post pinned to the top when I figure out how. Please comment on the potential and how you would add to the service. Much of the post would be below the fold is one thought, but is above this time for […]

If you need to know why we need government (G) spending, consider that there is no investment (I), and the plight of the consumer is summarized here: The rest is basic algebra.

by cactus Bush, The View From 2004 In 2000, I ran the numbers and it was obvious to me GW’s economic plan was complete BS, so I assumed the rest of what he was telling us couldn’t work either. But I can understand why many people voted for him. 2004 is a bit harder for […]

rdan Hat tip ataxingmatter for the link to this matter in Bloomberg: Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) — Goldman Sachs Group Inc., one of the top five U.S. municipal bond underwriters, is angering politicians and public-finance officials in New Jersey, Wisconsin, California and Florida by recommending that investors purchase credit-default swaps to bet against 11 states’ debt. […]

sort of an op-ed by rdan I have noticed from Yves Smith that the Baltic Dry Index is tanking*, and that letters of credit cost 3-4% to establish instead of the lower 1% or so. Trade has relied on ‘letters of credit’ to keep goods flowing. Correspondingly ‘sovereign bartering’ between governments is increasing as pricing […]

Sometimes, Blog Posts Write Themselves: Cleaning up a hard drive of old files, I ran across these two articles from the middle of last year. First, the WSJ, arbiter of business sanity and purveyor of a positive meme whenever one is to be found, on 28 July 2007—nine months after the general supply of securitizable […]

by reader OSO Summary: The two best examples of neoliberalism working are Australia and NewZealand. These two nations (of which I am a citizen of one) enactedmajor economic reforms in the early 1980s and have benefited since. The Washington Consensus, despite being out of fashion these days, is ablueprint that both Australia and New Zealand […]

by cactus Questions About the Big 3, and Legacy Costs I keep hearing that the Big 3’s Problem is that it has all these legacy union retirees who are expensive as all heck to maintain and add tremendously to the cost of manufacturing cars. That raises a few questions: 1. How many years will it […]