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On August 24 2013 03:57 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2013 03:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 24 2013 03:16 WhiteDog wrote:On August 24 2013 01:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 23 2013 21:45 WhiteDog wrote:
I always thought one of the few (good) things the US had that most countries had not was accountability...
The memo is really important because it is a physical proof that some people, like Greenspawn, did irresponsable things because of their stupid ideology. And considering the economic difficulties the entire world suffered because of that ideology, their responsability should be discussed.
That doesn't mean they should be in prison, but they for sure shouldn't be at the head of the Federal Reserve or any international organization.
It is also really problematic that some high officials, who arguably lead the evolutions of the world economic policies, are so deeply linked with banks and financial institutions. Even the most free marketists economists considered that the banks are a problem for a "free" economy (Hayek anyone ?). Yeah, people should be held accountable but I don't see anything in the memo that's a problem. It's just reaffirming what the public already knew - international trade in financial services was liberalized a few years ago. Going a bit deeper, I know that liberalizing trade in financial services lead to a few governments and orgaizations in Euorpe to make bad decisions regarding derivatives, but that seems more like a governance in Europe problem than a banking or trade problem (seems small potatoes to the overall European debt crisis too). The heart of the crisis in the US was a bank run in the repo market. I don't know Europe as well, but the main issue seems to be that pre-crisis, all sovereign debt in the Eurozone was being treated the same. Neither of those core issues (or the main issues surrounding them) have anything to do with the memo or the article about it. It is specifically written that one of the few people responsible for this "liberalization of markets (Larry Summers), which we know now was responsible for the crisis (because based on ideologies and irrealist models), was Obama's preferred choice for Chairman of the federal reserve... If you think the liberalisation and the deregulation has nothing to do with the crisis, then you are mistaking yourself. Greenspawn himself insisted on the fact that most models used by economists at the time refuted the simple idea of a crisis. I don't really have the time to argue, but it's not only a problem of risk management. Liberalization contributed, sure, but only at the margins. It was more of an accelerator than a core, fundamental issue. What makes you think this?
all economic problems are caused by insufficient liberalization. if you liberalize something, and there's a problem, it's because you didn't liberalize enough.
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On August 24 2013 03:57 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2013 03:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 24 2013 03:16 WhiteDog wrote:On August 24 2013 01:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 23 2013 21:45 WhiteDog wrote:
I always thought one of the few (good) things the US had that most countries had not was accountability...
The memo is really important because it is a physical proof that some people, like Greenspawn, did irresponsable things because of their stupid ideology. And considering the economic difficulties the entire world suffered because of that ideology, their responsability should be discussed.
That doesn't mean they should be in prison, but they for sure shouldn't be at the head of the Federal Reserve or any international organization.
It is also really problematic that some high officials, who arguably lead the evolutions of the world economic policies, are so deeply linked with banks and financial institutions. Even the most free marketists economists considered that the banks are a problem for a "free" economy (Hayek anyone ?). Yeah, people should be held accountable but I don't see anything in the memo that's a problem. It's just reaffirming what the public already knew - international trade in financial services was liberalized a few years ago. Going a bit deeper, I know that liberalizing trade in financial services lead to a few governments and orgaizations in Euorpe to make bad decisions regarding derivatives, but that seems more like a governance in Europe problem than a banking or trade problem (seems small potatoes to the overall European debt crisis too). The heart of the crisis in the US was a bank run in the repo market. I don't know Europe as well, but the main issue seems to be that pre-crisis, all sovereign debt in the Eurozone was being treated the same. Neither of those core issues (or the main issues surrounding them) have anything to do with the memo or the article about it. It is specifically written that one of the few people responsible for this "liberalization of markets (Larry Summers), which we know now was responsible for the crisis (because based on ideologies and irrealist models), was Obama's preferred choice for Chairman of the federal reserve... If you think the liberalisation and the deregulation has nothing to do with the crisis, then you are mistaking yourself. Greenspawn himself insisted on the fact that most models used by economists at the time refuted the simple idea of a crisis. I don't really have the time to argue, but it's not only a problem of risk management. Liberalization contributed, sure, but only at the margins. It was more of an accelerator than a core, fundamental issue. What makes you think this?
I've read quite a bit on the crisis. The fundamental trigger was a bank run in the repo market. That run had many causes itself, most notably the mortgage credit bubble. Now that bubble itself has an assortment of causes. You can insert liberalization here as one of those. In addition you have to factor in central bank policy, the asian financial crisis (and subsequent bailout, and subsequent buildup of foreign reserves), fannie mae / freddie mac and other government policies.
Now, had we not gone down the road of financial liberalization we can't say for certain how things would have turned out different. Plausibly, we would have either avoided a complete run and more likely the run / crisis would have been less severe. But! there would be a tradeoff - you'd lose the benefits of the liberalization (and they do exist).
A plausible way out is to address the run itself - we stop bank runs at the retail level with deposit guarantees. Some regulation / restriction that addresses runs at the wholesale level (the repo market) could be used to address the last run. Additionally, regulations could mandate that banks 'hold' more equity which would address the poor incentives banks currently have to take excessive risk (bankers would hate this btw).
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If bankers hate it, it needs to be done. 
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why do you think asian crisis is not part of 'liberalization'?
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On August 24 2013 04:42 sam!zdat wrote:
why do you think asian crisis is not part of 'liberalization'?
It is, but that liberalization is part of Asia's economic development. I'm not sure what you use in lieu of globalization to help Asia grow, and the prospect of Asia not growing isn't a worthwhile path to go down IMO.
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neither is the prospect of asia growing, I'm afraid
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On August 24 2013 04:58 sam!zdat wrote:
neither is the prospect of asia growing, I'm afraid
Hey man, it's almost the weekend. Quit being such a Malthusian wet towel 
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sorry I spent all of yesterday watching a lecture series called 'global problems in population growth.' there's no fun chez sam I'm afraid
edit: we can understand liberalization with a simple metaphor about eggs. liberalization is where you connect all of your eggs together, so that if one of your eggs breaks, you are not left with an embarrassingly uneven number of eggs, because all of them break. furthermore, you can use special tricks to pull eggs out of the future and hatch chickens from the eggs before the eggs are laid. that way, when all of your eggs break, you don't have to just break present eggs - you can break future eggs to! of course, then god has to repossess the chickens hatched from the future eggs, to prevent a run on the reality bank. also, there are enormous machines for automatically hurling eggs around the stratosphere at almost the speed of light, we're not sure what those are useful for yet, but they sure make eggs exciting!
edit: another thing you can do is, you can take your one chicken (hatched from a future egg) and sell ITS future eggs in order to buy a second chicken. then, the person you sold the eggs to can rehypothecate the chicken and sell its future eggs AGAIN in order to buy a third chicken. liberalization is really the best.
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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s third-largest county has begun issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the second county in the state to begin doing so this week.
Santa Fe County Clerk Geraldine Salazar made the move Friday afternoon under orders from a state district judge.
The first same-sex couple to get a license in Santa Fe County was Santa Fe County Commissioner Liz Stefanics and Linda Siegle, a lobbyist for Equality New Mexico, a gay rights group. Stefanics is a former Democratic state senator from Santa Fe.
Others expected to seek a license are the two men who filed the lawsuit that resulted in the court order directing the clerk to issue licenses — Alexander Hanna and Yon Hudson.
The move comes two days after the county clerk in Dona Ana County in southern New Mexico decided on his own to being issuing same-sex marriage licenses.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
framing things in terms of liberalization vs North Korea style communism (or Primitive Asia) is painting too simple a picture.
it so happens that the dominant spread of the 'market' system into asia (china in particular) is anglo style, no holds bar capitalism with its characteristic high inequality and socially isolated corporations and management culture. The social market system of europe, with higher social and labor participation/integration and correspondingly higher equality, did not spread so much. outside of these different sorts of capitalism as defined by real world cases, we can also imagine alternative paths of liberalisation that does not carry the problems that inflict asia today. to say theseproblems are inherent and given to any liberalization is just silly.
to be sure some of the highly oppressive conditions are relics of previous systems, such as China's household registration system or the chinese government's land rent extraction. but one has to question the exact nature of 'liberalization' within those countries when this tide of freedom seems to flow within channels carved out by entrenched interests, only sweeping aside those relics of history who are powerless to exploit others within the new system. (i.e. low level, connectionless state employees, people with household registration in unproductive land)
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On August 24 2013 08:08 oneofthem wrote:
framing things in terms of liberalization vs North Korea style communism (or Primitive Asia) is painting too simple a picture.
it so happens that the dominant spread of the 'market' system into asia (china in particular) is anglo style, no holds bar capitalism with its characteristic high inequality and socially isolated corporations and management culture. The social market system of europe, with higher social and labor participation/integration and correspondingly higher equality, did not spread so much. outside of these different sorts of capitalism as defined by real world cases, we can also imagine alternative paths of liberalisation that does not carry the problems that inflict asia today. to say theseproblems are inherent and given to any liberalization is just silly.
to be sure some of the highly oppressive conditions are relics of previous systems, such as China's household registration system or the chinese government's land rent extraction. but one has to question the exact nature of 'liberalization' within those countries when this tide of freedom seems to flow within channels carved out by entrenched interests, only sweeping aside those relics of history who are powerless to exploit others within the new system. (i.e. low level, connectionless state employees, people with household registration in unproductive land)
I tend to view Asia as having it's own style of capitalism. Lots of state backing (both explicit and implicit), state direction and a strong social contract between businesses and workers (at least in Japan).
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
well, japan is pretty unique in asia though. certainly the social environment and existing institutions do affect how things develop quite a bit, but speaking from personal experience, the gospel that is preached in say, a chinese business school, is as 'neoliberal' orthodox as you can get.
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social democracy in europe only ever existed as a compromise against the ussr. Now that there's no threat of poor countries falling into the soviet orbit it's falling apart. It was never really a 'way' in its own right
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
i dunno. germans have a pretty long history of politically integrated industry. it rather flows from previously existing social institutions. japan is the same with how industry and state were tied in history.
edit: not saying this system is necessarily all that better than the anglo system of free-er capitalism. it's not a benign, enlightened, consciously designed system, and it often lacks competition and adaptability. the larger point is just that liberalization does not necessarily challenge existing power structures, but can be captured by such systems. it's not by itself a magic bullet.
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On August 24 2013 08:35 oneofthem wrote:
well, japan is pretty unique in asia though. certainly the social environment and existing institutions do affect how things develop quite a bit, but speaking from personal experience, the gospel that is preached in say, a chinese business school, is as 'neoliberal' orthodox as you can get.
You know, I really don't know enough about Asia to really challenge you on that. I thought that Korea was pretty similar. I don't know much about SE Asia.
China seems to be a mixed bag - it's very dog eat dog yet there's still lots of SOE's hanging around, the financial system is heavily controlled by Beijing, foreign companies are allowed in warily, and the hukou system is still in effect.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
well, the SOEs in China are coming from a different place than social democrats' imagination of the socially minded corporation. they are obviously state backed monopolies in the most rent extracting monopoly industries, and i don't think anyone outside of those who actually benefit from them can actually defend them. i should have added them onto the list of bad stuff going on in china, but it'd be a long list lol.
liberalization against the SOEs is definitely good for everyone.
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On August 24 2013 09:18 oneofthem wrote:
well, the SOEs in China are coming from a different place than social democrats' imagination of the socially minded corporation. they are obviously state backed monopolies in the most rent extracting monopoly industries, and i don't think anyone outside of those who actually benefit from them can actually defend them. i should have added them onto the list of bad stuff going on in china, but it'd be a long list lol.
liberalization against the SOEs is definitely good for everyone.
Very (and sadly) true!
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WASHINGTON—National Security Agency officers on several occasions have channeled their agency’s enormous eavesdropping power to spy on love interests, U.S. officials said.
The practice isn’t frequent — one official estimated a handful of cases in the last decade — but it’s common enough to garner its own spycraft label: LOVEINT.
Spy agencies often refer to their various types of intelligence collection with the suffix of “INT,” such as “SIGINT” for collecting signals intelligence, or communications; and “HUMINT” for human intelligence, or spying.
The “LOVEINT” examples constitute most episodes of willful misconduct by NSA employees, officials said.
In the wake of revelations last week that NSA had violated privacy rules on nearly 3,000 occasions in a one-year period, NSA Chief Compliance Officer John DeLong emphasized in a conference call with reporters last week that those errors were unintentional. He did say that there have been “a couple” of willful violations in the past decade. He said he didn’t have the exact figures at the moment.
Source
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It seems only a matter of time before the military will step in as states are already broke as it is.
A wildfire raging at the edge of Yosemite national park is threatening power lines that provide electricity to San Francisco, prompting California governor Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency.
The fire has damaged the electrical infrastructure serving the city, and forced the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to shut down power lines, the governor said in his declaration.
There were no reports of blackouts in the city, which is about 200 miles west of the park.
The wildfire swept further into Yosemite national park on Friday, remaining largely unchecked as it threatened one of the country's major tourist destinations.
The so-called Rim Fire, which started last week in the Stanislaus national forest, had blackened 11,000 acres (4,450 hectares) at the north-eastern corner of Yosemite as of Friday afternoon after exploding in size overnight, park spokeswoman Kari Cobb said.
The blaze burning in the western Sierra Nevada mountains is now the fastest-moving of 50 large wildfires raging across the drought-parched US west that have strained resources and prompted fire managers to open talks with Pentagon commanders and Canadian officials about possible reinforcements.
The 2013 fire season has already drained US Forest Service fire suppression and emergency funds, causing the agency to redirect $600 million meant for other projects such as campground and trail maintenance and thinning of trees to reduce wildfire risks, said agency spokesman Mike Ferris.
The service has spent some $967 million to protect lives and properties amid a season in which fires in Idaho, Utah, Colorado and California have threatened homes and communities that border forest and wild lands where fire is more dangerous and costly to fight, Ferris said.
With hotshots and other elite fire crews stretched thin, US fire managers will decide in coming days whether to seek US military or international aid to check the roughly 50 large fires burning in the west.
Source
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On August 24 2013 04:35 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2013 03:57 farvacola wrote:On August 24 2013 03:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 24 2013 03:16 WhiteDog wrote:On August 24 2013 01:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 23 2013 21:45 WhiteDog wrote:
I always thought one of the few (good) things the US had that most countries had not was accountability...
The memo is really important because it is a physical proof that some people, like Greenspawn, did irresponsable things because of their stupid ideology. And considering the economic difficulties the entire world suffered because of that ideology, their responsability should be discussed.
That doesn't mean they should be in prison, but they for sure shouldn't be at the head of the Federal Reserve or any international organization.
It is also really problematic that some high officials, who arguably lead the evolutions of the world economic policies, are so deeply linked with banks and financial institutions. Even the most free marketists economists considered that the banks are a problem for a "free" economy (Hayek anyone ?). Yeah, people should be held accountable but I don't see anything in the memo that's a problem. It's just reaffirming what the public already knew - international trade in financial services was liberalized a few years ago. Going a bit deeper, I know that liberalizing trade in financial services lead to a few governments and orgaizations in Euorpe to make bad decisions regarding derivatives, but that seems more like a governance in Europe problem than a banking or trade problem (seems small potatoes to the overall European debt crisis too). The heart of the crisis in the US was a bank run in the repo market. I don't know Europe as well, but the main issue seems to be that pre-crisis, all sovereign debt in the Eurozone was being treated the same. Neither of those core issues (or the main issues surrounding them) have anything to do with the memo or the article about it. It is specifically written that one of the few people responsible for this "liberalization of markets (Larry Summers), which we know now was responsible for the crisis (because based on ideologies and irrealist models), was Obama's preferred choice for Chairman of the federal reserve... If you think the liberalisation and the deregulation has nothing to do with the crisis, then you are mistaking yourself. Greenspawn himself insisted on the fact that most models used by economists at the time refuted the simple idea of a crisis. I don't really have the time to argue, but it's not only a problem of risk management. Liberalization contributed, sure, but only at the margins. It was more of an accelerator than a core, fundamental issue. What makes you think this? I've read quite a bit on the crisis. The fundamental trigger was a bank run in the repo market. That run had many causes itself, most notably the mortgage credit bubble. Now that bubble itself has an assortment of causes. You can insert liberalization here as one of those. In addition you have to factor in central bank policy, the asian financial crisis (and subsequent bailout, and subsequent buildup of foreign reserves), fannie mae / freddie mac and other government policies. Now, had we not gone down the road of financial liberalization we can't say for certain how things would have turned out different. Plausibly, we would have either avoided a complete run and more likely the run / crisis would have been less severe. But! there would be a tradeoff - you'd lose the benefits of the liberalization (and they do exist). A plausible way out is to address the run itself - we stop bank runs at the retail level with deposit guarantees. Some regulation / restriction that addresses runs at the wholesale level (the repo market) could be used to address the last run. Additionally, regulations could mandate that banks 'hold' more equity which would address the poor incentives banks currently have to take excessive risk (bankers would hate this btw).
What have you read ? Seems to me you read article written during the crisis (2007 - 2008).
Since 2010, most work I've read on the crisis talk on the rôle of countries such as China, the global "saving glut" theory, the problem of systemic risks with new institutions like the hedge funds and the most recent work from the IMF even discuss the impact of inequalities on the crisis. (source)
Suffice to say, you are only describing the most obvious mechanisms when you point out the "financial" (as in financial innovations and market models) aspect of the crisis, but this aspect has to be put back into a more global frame to really describe what happened.
About the benefit of liberalisation... they're a fraud most of the time. I am talking about the financial market, the deregulation of finance and the capital mobility it gives. I'm not talking about import and export of goods.
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EPT
