Blog Profile / Naked Capitalism

Links 6/19/13

More Obama Administration Secrecy: Rep. Grayson Sees and Can’t Discuss Classified Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement Draft

OK, you remaining Obama fans: tell me why we should trust the biggest baiter and switcher in the history of the Presidency, particularly when he insists on unprecedented levels of secrecy? Because he has nice teeth and cute kids?

ObamaCare Icebergs: Medical Debt and the Start-Up of the Federally-Run Exchanges

An article by doctors David U. Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandle, published by the Boston Fed, gives a stark picture of the extent and severity of medical indebtedness in the US, and why Obamacare won't remedy that problem. And we'll discuss later that getting the machinery running looks likely to be another serious shortcoming with the program.

Extreme Energy, Extreme Implications: Interview with Michael Klare

If oil and gas is a profoundly dynamic phenomenon, then so too must be environmental risk and conflicts over natural resources—and we are not getting the full picture from the mainstream media, according to Michael T. Klare, professor...Show More Summary

Lynn Parramore: Meet America’s Most Shameless Defender of the 1 Percent, Harvard Economist Greg Mankiw

Readers were duly exercised about a paper published by Greg Mankiw which had to go through so many hoops to promote the idea that inequality was the result of merit as to be worthy of our Frederic Mishkin Iceland Prize for Intellectual Integrity. Suffice it to say further ridicule of Mankiw is in order, and Parramore provides a useful contribution.

Links 6/18/13

NYU Administrators Create Student Debt Slaves to Subsidize Summer Homes, Ginormous Pension

When union members demand decent pay levels and work conditions, they are charged with featherbedding and overmanning or the new neoliberal catchall, "demanding uncompetitive wages". But when the upper crust loots institutions, the mainstream media is typically missing in action.

Coming to a Broke Municipality Near You: The Greek, Um, Jefferson County, Solution

Jefferson County's sewer system train wreck is now looking an awful lot like the periphery country in Europe mess.

Robert Wade: Elite Denial of Corruption and Inequality – World Bank Case Study

Yves here. While readers may think development policy has limited relevance to US and advanced economy readers, the IMF and World Bank have been and continue to be vehicles to make the world, particularly smaller or otherwise more influenceable regimes, more friendly to the interests of US multinationals. Show More Summary

Michael Hoexter: Summer Heat – The Movement Against Ripping the Face off the Earth for a Brief Fossil-Fueled “Party”

Civilization requires agriculture, which is dependent on a few sensitive species to produce a surplus of food for masses of people with comparatively lower levels of labor or mechanical work. If we make the climate inhospitable to these...Show More Summary

Links 6/17/13

Techies’ Efforts to Own #Snowden/NSA Surveillance Narrative = #Fail

Some Silicon Valley figures, along with some Democratic party-aligned media outlets, have tried assailing Glenn Greenwald, and indirectly, Edward Snowden, by trying to discredit certain aspects of the Guardian account of NSA surveillance in the US. Show More Summary

Vale David Hirst

Yves here. Steve Keen sent this note along with his post: The journalist David Hirst was both one of the few to warn of the crisis, and someone who became a good friend. He died last week, as a long term consequence of internal injuries...Show More Summary

Some Datapoints on Global Political Risk

By lambert strether of Corrente. So, I was trawling the twitter earlier this evening, and I ran across mention of a large, ongoing "protest" (we'll call it) in Sao Paolo, Brazil. I've been following events in Turkey, of course, which...Show More Summary

May’s Retail Sales Up 0.6%, Industrial Production Flat

RJS is a rural swamp denizen from Northeast Ohio, and a long-time commenter at Naked Capitalism. Originally published at MarketWatch 666. Lambert here: Since Hugh’s regular reports on unemployment have found a readership at Naked Capitalism, we thought we’d try for coverage of additional regularly released data series, as curated by RJS, not only to [...]

Links 6/16/13

ObamaCare’s Relentless Creation of Second-Class Citizens (2)

By lambert strether of Corrente. And we go to Happyville, instead of to Pain City. –Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

Six Reasons Why Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

By MsExpat, a long-time poster at Corrente. I live in Hong Kong. And when the news broke that Snowden had decided to take refuge in my city, I was puzzled at first. But then, as I read and listened to pundit after pundit in the US declare...Show More Summary

Links 6/15/13

What Are You Doing to Protect Yourself From NSA? #SafeData

I'm opening up the thread for readers to discuss what they have done or plan to do in the wake of the revelations about the extent of NSA surveillance.