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 — […]

Dylan Ratigan interviews Yves Smith on  where the money goes (h/t rjs): Smith: Investors Are Afraid of Suing the Big Banks for Fear the Government Will RetaliateOn this episode of Greedy Bastards Antidote, we’re covering a new term from our upcoming book. This week, we’re focusing on extractionism. Joining us to discuss it is Yves […]

Often  participating in econoblogging is done by an older crowd.  I  receive requests by younger potential econobloggers to read some of their posts, but often such posts are lacking in enough documentation and thoroughness of understanding for publication here.  My hope is that this young woman becomes the exception.  Re-posted with authors permission   Dan […]

by Linda Beale   House passes spending bill While the Senate was wrangling over what of the noxious provisions in HR 3630 they would have to keep in order to get expanded unemployment compensation and a payroll tax cut, the House passed a spending bill 296-121 (with 147 Republicans and 149 Democrats in favor) to […]

In this must read post Ezra Klein asked Ron Wyden and Paul Ryan for evidence that forcing the CMS (Medicare/Medicade) to compete more with private insurers can be used to reduce health care spending. The logic must be that the private sector is better able to control costs so private insurers can insure for less, […]

by Rebecca Wilder EA Infernal Devaluation Progressing The EU answer to rebalancing portfolio and trade flows within the Euro area (EA) without currency devaluation is recession and deflation. They call this ‘internal devaluation’ – shifting relative prices by reducing domestic demand in the debtor countries, thereby shifting the terms of trade. Marshall Auerback calls it ‘infernaldevaluation’. […]

by Linda Beale  Payroll Tax Cut -Keystone vote up Saturday at 9 in Senate Apparently, Senate leaders on Friday ironed out the difficulty between the GOP and the Democratic party.  The GOP got most everything it wanted, and the Dems got just barely more than nothing.  That’s the way “negotiating” seems to go in the Congress […]

by Dale Coberly  Social Security…Hearts and Minds Tom Margenau wrote an essay about the payroll tax holiday in The National Memo Is Your Tax Holiday Gift A Lump of Coal? His essay seemed to me to illustrate one of the problems with the Social Security “debate” as it has been constructed. Margenau  describes himself as […]

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 […]