Raúl Ilargi Meijer
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The US election is shaping up to look eerily similar to Brexit. I called it Joe Bageant meets Brexit in the Sep 14 Debt Rattle, great article from the Atlantic.
Indeed, seychelles. The natural inclination when growth shrinks is to take care of your own (first), family, community etc., the -screwed- reasoned one is that more globalization is always better.
regionswork et al
The issue of SDRs was the topic of Christopher Balding’s latest (Debt Rattle Sep 7). Where Rickards and others see SDR issuance as a sign of Chinese strength (and of impending end of USD), Balding concludes the opposite. I don’t know about Nicole, we haven’t discussed this, but I would certainly agree with Balding. A new Goldman report estimates annual growth in Chinese debt/GDP at 30-40%, on top of a recent IIF estimate of total debt/GDP of 300%. Claims of Chinese strength are greatly exaggerated.
Why China Isn’t a Financial Center
..it doesn’t want to let the yuan’s value float freely, which would be a prerequisite to its becoming a true reserve currency. China saw SDRs as a way to split the difference, to create a competitor to the dollar and maintain a fixed exchange rate at the same time. The problem is that there’s almost no conceivable reason to use them. SDRs were created as a synthetic reserve asset by the IMF decades ago, under the Bretton Woods system. No country uses them for normal business, and no government is likely to issue bonds denominated in them except for political reasons, as the World Bank is doing. Companies won’t use them either. If a firm wants to borrow to build a plant in Japan, it will issue a bond in yen so it can repay in yen.
Rogoff claims that cash creates crime. Nonsense. Not a smart man, just ‘educated’.
Nicole deals with him in Part 3 of the series Negative Interest Rates and the War on Cash that I just published here at TAE.
Oh yes, it does. It’s about control, not some imaginary fight against deflation.
BTW, Nicole has trouble logging in to TAE, we’re working on it, but she’ll get involved.
In centralization, people give up part of the control over their societies. They will only consent to this if and when they receive something in return, when they get wealthier, or at least perceive that they do. When this idea no longer delivers, they will want to regain control over their own lives. Why let someone far away make your decisions for you if there are no benefits to this?
Yeah, Ken, but now you’re placing it in today’s world too, and really, that world is going going gone. The decentralization and basic income effort itself is much more valid than the numbers. Plenty deflation coming up, though, if that’s any consolation.
Just in case this from me was missed in yesterday’s thread:
“I forget what thread it was in, but the Chrome issue appears fixed now.”
But do let me know if you still experience problems.
They can’t turn Brexit around, it would throw the UK into a dangerous constitutional mess.
The majority of these angry people, and I said this before, should look in the mirror and concede that they thought Remain was in the bag and they therefore didn’t do much of anything. They were watching a baking show on TV, want to bet?
V. Arnold, Diablo et al, this has something to do with the fact that we moved to https (secure), but I don’t know what exactly. We’ll look into it. Another thing I’ve noticed is that Statcounter has become erratic, mostly counting only a fraction of actual visits and page views.
jal is back, glad we solved that
V. Arnold, whaddaya mean? Anyone else notice that, the Edit function not working?
Absolutely. I’m not the one making the argument that Britain can’t stand on its own two feet, that’s a logical conclusion from much of what I read from the Remain campaign as well as the panicky reactions. My view should be clear: the EU is a monster that no-one in a sane mind should wish to be part of.
As the politico-economic system unravels, the politicians who were/are on the take are finding out there’s no place for them anymore. Or rather, it’s going to be either full-tard serve the masters, or go Podemos. Britain desperately needs the latter, the traditional parties have nothing left that would appeal to anyone. Reforming Labour is a crazy and useless idea.
Massive swing to Brexit – with just 13 days to go
55% Leave – 45% Remain
ZH on Clinton’s email issues:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-10/fbi-leaks-begin-emails-center-hillary-criminal-probe-revealedWhat a mess.
I follow the discussion with interest, but I don’t think many Britons actually get what it’s about. They seem to think it’s between Boris and Cameron. It’s fine not to like Boris, but that means voting for Cameron, Osborne, Juncker, Tusk and 5 more unelected presidents, plus whoever’s in charge in Berlin, all of whom will tighten their grip on Britain, and it’ll be years before you get a chance to get your say on this again. Boris as PM isn’t all that bad, because he won’t last long. But yeah, I’m biased, because I think, as I’ve written a thousand times, that the Union is unholy.
Journalists like politicians, economists and bankers are all part of one and the same system. And that system is -walking- dead.
Just wrote a reply to the FT wanting a piece of me last week, see Debt Rattle June 1:
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Richard,
Sorry it took me a few days to reply, I had to think this over.
We both know that you sent this mail a few hours after someone wrote in my Comments section that FT is accessible through Google (News), and I confirmed that in the same section.
But that has nothing to do with me, that’s your deal. And I’m not happy with your reaction to that and the timing of it. I find it doesn’t show a lot of class.
Ashvin, by the way, hasn’t written anything for the Automatic Earth in years. Which tells me something about your attention to detail.
As does the fact that you say I ‘republish the full text of articles’, something I never do. As you know because you’ve actually read the Debt Rattles.
My Debt Rattles are news overviews across a broad spectrum of publications. The FT is simply one of them. No more, no less.
And sure, we can arm-wrestle about the legal definition of fair use, but why should we? We both know it’s not just a headline.
I’ll be happy to continue including you in my news overviews, and I don’t see what you have to gain by opting out of that.
If your content is as ‘high quality’ as you guys like to claim, I have no doubt that you will get new paid customers through the Automatic Earth.
As for that detail thing, you have undoubtedly noticed that the format of Debt Rattles is not just headlines.
I’m trying to provide my readers with enough of articles that they want to read more of them, and at the same time get the feeling they get a summary grasp of the overall view of the news of the day.
But if you insist in being left out of that, by all means say so. I’ll gladly pretend the FT doesn’t exist.
Look, I understand it’s hard to make living in these transitory times for media. But I would venture that in those times I add at least as much value for you as I may perhaps take away.
(well, other than for mentioning the Google deal, perhaps, but as I said, that has nothing to do with me)
Still, if you see that differently, you of course have every right to. And there’ll be no more FT at TAE.
Unless I think I need to pour into one of your writers in one of my original articles for writing something I don’t consider ‘high quality’, or for something I heartily agree with.
Then everyone’s fair game.
Anyway, please send something classier next time around, nothing has indicated to you that I can’t be approached in more reasonable terms.
I’m not a thief or a cheat and I certainly don’t like to be treated as such.
Cheers,
Raúl Ilargi Meijer
The Automatic EarthI was thinking something along the lines of Noah’s ark. Get a rhino in there, an elephant, take it from there.
US Announces Near-Total Ban On Trade Of African Elephant Ivory
US authorities announced a near-total ban on the trade of African elephant ivory Thursday, finalizing a years-long push to protect the endangered animals. “Today’s bold action underscores the United States’ leadership and commitment to ending the scourge of elephant poaching and the tragic impact it’s having on wild populations,” Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said. The new rule “substantially limits” imports, exports and sales of such ivory across state lines, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) said. However, it does make exceptions for some “pre-existing manufactured” items, such as musical instruments, furniture and firearms that contain less than 200 grams of ivory and meet other specific criteria, according to the FWS.
That comment of mine about the deals various news organizations have with Google apparently triggers reactions that would seem to indicate they don’t really want those deals to get overly known. So I got this mail from FT, and I’ll leave it up to my readers to make up their minds. I’ll write a reaction mañana:
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Dear Ashvin,
I am writing to you as a representative of The Financial Times Limited (the “Financial Times”), a company incorporated in the United Kingdom, which owns and publishes the Financial Times newspaper and http://www.ft.com and is the owner or licensor of all intellectual property rights in and attached to those publications.
We have included below a sample list of URL’s that republish copyright protected articles from the Financial Times on the Debt Rattle section of your site. There are many more than those listed below.
Thank you for demonstrating an interest in the Financial Times and for promoting our journalism to readers of your website. You may continue to republish headlines published on FT.com without a licence or payment on the condition that you comply with our terms and conditions which can be found at https://www.ft.com/servicestools/help/terms#legal2.
In summary you may republish FT headlines provided that the headlines link back to the original article hosted on FT.com and you restrict your reproduction of our original work to the headline.
If you wish to republish the full text of articles, as you are currently doing, then you need to purchase a licence to do so. We do not believe that you have a formal agreement or licence in place with the Financial Times to republish our articles. Our syndication team are available to discuss republishing rights. For a price quotation and further details please email syndication@ft.com.
If you believe you already have a formal agreement to reproduce our material or have any other questions, please reply via email.
In the absence of such an agreement we ask that you cease publishing our full text articles and restrict your republication of our copyright protected material to the headlines only.
The URLs in question include:
Thank you for your cooperation,
Richard Pigden
FT Syndication Rights & Operations Manager
From May 30 thread:
Nassim et al,
Google has these deals with many new organizations, where you can read full articles if you go through Google News for access to FT, WSJ and many more. Type in URL or first few words of headline. I do it all the time, have done for years. Sorry if people didn’t catch on to that yet, I wrote about it many times.
Nassim et al,
Google has these deals with many new organizations. Go through Google News for access to FT, WSJ and many more.
Oh, and BTW, I couldn’t log in to the Facebook account for TAE because, as it said:
“It looks like you’re using your personal Facebook profile to represent an organization, business, brand or public figure It’s against the Facebook Terms to use your personal account to represent something other than yourself. In order to follow the Facebook Terms, you should create a Page based on your profile.”
Now that is partly true, but only partly. I am TAE these days. I may not share pics of my pets or kids or body parts in the shower, but it is very much me. I’m not representing anything that is not me.
So now apparently I need to create ”A Page” . And I don’t know what that will mean. FB doesn’t give me an option to react to their claims that I am ”representing something other than myself”, which therefore looks to be accepted as a given even if it’s not.
I think what might happen is I lose all history, and hopefully keep the 2000+ friends I have there. But I don’t know. Is this gonna take hours of reading through shit to get it right? Should I leave FB like so many young people do and go for Snapchat or Instagram?
The FB account for TAE was set up years ago by a friend, and I think Nicole had a say in the naming, but it ran well for all that time, without doing any harm. Someone ratted on the account? That would be just in style. We’ve had that shit to an extent you would not believe since we started.
Dr., I’ve been ranting against the EU for years, no need to use someone else’s tagline.
Ken, once you take out speculation and leverage – i.e. modern investing- I think you could be halfway there. As long as people keep buying homes with the idea that they’re cash machines and/or retirement vehicles, however, debt is king.
I know what Yanis envisions, Daisy, but I very much question how feasible it is. The EU is not an institution that you can simply put different people in and everything will be whoopsy-daisy. I think Europe needs a whole new model, not a revision of the old one, and Europe is by no means the only candidate for that.
That must be like the worst critique one can get. Got to admit, it’s hard to get the drive and schedule back, to think: this must be out there today! And Brexit is a complex issue, a book about it, already now, is entirely possible. More articles coming up soon, and I may have found my miracle doctor (neurologist) here in Athens. Through a TAE reader, of course. How that connects is amazing. Guy’s the spitting image of Billy Connolly but had never heard of him. Sticks a needle in my arm once a day to heal a pinched nerve in my spine and I have faith in him. What can you do? I never express my love for all you regular TAE readers, do I? Here you go.
Don’t know, John. Everything’s on hold until the Brexit vote June 23. If Leave wins (which I pray for), you’ll get your wish for sure. Happy now?
E. Swanson,
Great example: “..China’s richest man — at least on paper — lost half of his wealth in less than half an hour..”
I’ve been harping on here about China for so long people may have been thinking I was nuts. But China is really just a casino. Xi saw the US and thought: “I have 4 times as many people, so I can bet/print at least 4 times what they have.” And he did just that. Right now, he’s finding that didn’t work. And so….looks to me like double or nothing, all on red.
XYZ,
Steve is simply the no. 1 economist in my view, because he’s a very damn smart man who focuses his life on rigorously trying to lay bare the fallacies of the school(s) of economics that drive us towards not only economic mayhem, but most of our other problems as well. That he doesn’t deal with all the latter at the same time on top of that, I forgive him ;-), and I think it’s up to others, TAE first of all, to do that. Meanwhile his input on the economics side is extremely useful. In the same vein, I can forgive people for focusing on other issues without necessarily getting the big(gest) picture right.
