The noise level is getting high again.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Yanis Varoufakis: How the ECB is Complicit in a Macro-Financial Debacle - 08/18/2012 - Yves Smith
Wishful thinking.
Paul Ryan – Insider Trading and War on Medicare - 08/18/2012 - Yves Smith
George Washington: Iran’s Words Mistranslated Again by Americans Trying to Start a War - 08/17/2012 - George Washington
Announcing Investigative Series on the Private Equity Industry - 08/17/2012 - Yves Smith
Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/08/links-81812.html#55xsZIAcDb8KVTYy.99
Links 8/18/12
Burning Man Shopping: The Best Places To Buy Costumes In San Francisco Huffington Post. I think this is proof that whatever Burning Man was, it’s now just a tourist destination.
What The Hell: ‘Satan’ Makes Portentous Appearance During Local Weather Report Gawker
Senior Russia space official quits after loss of satellites Reuters
Saltwater in Mississippi Taints Drinking Supply Wall Street Journal
DNA data storage breaks records Nature (Lambert)
Twitter Changes Lead to Online Protests New York Times
C-Suite Slipping on Information Security, Study Finds CFO
Pussy Riot Trial: Feminist Punk Band Guilty Of Hooliganism, Motivated By Religious Hatred Huffington Post
Robin Hood mayor vows to occupy banks Financial Times
Will Israel attack Iran? – The voice of experience vs. an insider’s view Ha’aretz
TVWho: Gen. Wesley Clark Shocker on 9/11 “Policy Coup” WhoWhatWhy
Mitt Romney’s tax returns: the ‘voter fraud’ theory Guardian (don h)
Mitt’s 13% Tax Robert Reich
Premium Support Deserves Demonization, Actually Dave Dayen, Firedoglake (Carol B)
What Paul Ryan’s Budget Plan Would Mean for an Average Family Daily Finance (Carol B)
Paul Ryan’s plan for America is not credible Martin Wolf, Financial Times.
Late Night: A Weeklong Course in Self-Defense for Media Swopa, Firedoglake
Let’s Help #WikiLeaks Liberate the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiating Text DailyKos (Robert N)
U.S. to revamp Fannie, Freddie bailout terms Washington Post and U.S. tightens reins on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Reuters
Why the prolonged economic slump? One word: Housing. BubbleMeter
PBC state attorney investigating county clerk’s evidence department; 3 workers suspended Palm Beach Post. So get a load of this: a mere three days after the primary for Clerk of Courts, the Palm Beach Post releases the story that three employees of the incumbent who won the primary, Pam Bock, are under criminal investigation for evidence allegedly disappearing from the evidence room. Notice it was a referral to the inspector general that forced Bock to act. Notice also that the employees were suspended on July 2, yet Bock didn’t publicize the fact. She claims that she was protecting the employees. Yeah, right. And the Palm Beach Post, which endorsed Bock for the election against Lisa Epstein, also appears to have squelched this wee bit of news.
Pyramid Insurance Harpers (Lambert)
Wells Fargo Is A Little Sorry That It Sold Securities It Knew Nothing About Dealbreaker (Deus Ex Macchaito)
Deutsche Bank’s Business With Sanctioned Nations Under Scrutiny New York Times. This is disgraceful. The Feds are now using every excuse to beat up on Lawsky. And look at the ridiculous claim: “Oh, since Lawsky was SOOO MEAN to SCB, now all those other big foreign banks might not cooperate with us.” Cooperate? You think these banks might have engaged in money laundering and your assumption is they will play nice and be honest? Have you not heard of subpoenas?
Banker gets 9-month sentence for bribes Financial Times. So someone finally goes to jail. One guy.
Jury Finds MF Global Not Guilty masaccio, Firedoglake. You must read down to his quote from Fulmer and Knill.
What The Hell: ‘Satan’ Makes Portentous Appearance During Local Weather Report Gawker
Senior Russia space official quits after loss of satellites Reuters
Saltwater in Mississippi Taints Drinking Supply Wall Street Journal
DNA data storage breaks records Nature (Lambert)
Twitter Changes Lead to Online Protests New York Times
C-Suite Slipping on Information Security, Study Finds CFO
Pussy Riot Trial: Feminist Punk Band Guilty Of Hooliganism, Motivated By Religious Hatred Huffington Post
Robin Hood mayor vows to occupy banks Financial Times
Will Israel attack Iran? – The voice of experience vs. an insider’s view Ha’aretz
TVWho: Gen. Wesley Clark Shocker on 9/11 “Policy Coup” WhoWhatWhy
Mitt Romney’s tax returns: the ‘voter fraud’ theory Guardian (don h)
Mitt’s 13% Tax Robert Reich
Premium Support Deserves Demonization, Actually Dave Dayen, Firedoglake (Carol B)
What Paul Ryan’s Budget Plan Would Mean for an Average Family Daily Finance (Carol B)
Paul Ryan’s plan for America is not credible Martin Wolf, Financial Times.
Late Night: A Weeklong Course in Self-Defense for Media Swopa, Firedoglake
Let’s Help #WikiLeaks Liberate the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiating Text DailyKos (Robert N)
U.S. to revamp Fannie, Freddie bailout terms Washington Post and U.S. tightens reins on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Reuters
Why the prolonged economic slump? One word: Housing. BubbleMeter
PBC state attorney investigating county clerk’s evidence department; 3 workers suspended Palm Beach Post. So get a load of this: a mere three days after the primary for Clerk of Courts, the Palm Beach Post releases the story that three employees of the incumbent who won the primary, Pam Bock, are under criminal investigation for evidence allegedly disappearing from the evidence room. Notice it was a referral to the inspector general that forced Bock to act. Notice also that the employees were suspended on July 2, yet Bock didn’t publicize the fact. She claims that she was protecting the employees. Yeah, right. And the Palm Beach Post, which endorsed Bock for the election against Lisa Epstein, also appears to have squelched this wee bit of news.
Pyramid Insurance Harpers (Lambert)
Wells Fargo Is A Little Sorry That It Sold Securities It Knew Nothing About Dealbreaker (Deus Ex Macchaito)
Deutsche Bank’s Business With Sanctioned Nations Under Scrutiny New York Times. This is disgraceful. The Feds are now using every excuse to beat up on Lawsky. And look at the ridiculous claim: “Oh, since Lawsky was SOOO MEAN to SCB, now all those other big foreign banks might not cooperate with us.” Cooperate? You think these banks might have engaged in money laundering and your assumption is they will play nice and be honest? Have you not heard of subpoenas?
Banker gets 9-month sentence for bribes Financial Times. So someone finally goes to jail. One guy.
Jury Finds MF Global Not Guilty masaccio, Firedoglake. You must read down to his quote from Fulmer and Knill.
Nothing new at the Guardian.
The Telegraph is busy.
Lord Rothschild's £130m bet against the euro
18 Aug 2012
| 66 Comments A message from the 1970s on state spending
18 Aug 2012
| 120 Comments Britain's young entrepreneurs are leading the way
18 Aug 2012
| 16 Comments Germany may be the country that brings the euro crashing down
18 Aug 2012
| 73 Comments Juncker rules out Greek exit from eurozone
18 Aug 2012
| 215 Comments A positive outlook will stimulate the economy
Telegraph View: It is important that our political leaders do not dent confidence by being overly pessimistic17 Aug 2012
| 17 Comments
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| Greek debt rises to 303 bn euros | ||||
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| Bounced cheques down in volume and value | ||||
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| Finland prepares for euro break up scenario: report | ||||
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| News bites @ 10 | ||||
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| News bites @ 5 | ||||
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| ECB reluctant to take loss | ||||
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| Eurozone diplomacy picks up pace | ||||
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| Pakistanis allege police torture | ||||
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| Additional T-Bill sales | |||||||
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| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Serfdom |
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The freedom that Hayek so promotes looks to be the freedom of the powerful to exploit the less powerful.
Summary
Hayek argues that Western democracies, including the United Kingdom and the United States, have “progressively abandoned that freedom in economic affairs without which personal and political freedom has never existed in the past.”[9] Society has mistakenly tried to ensure continuing prosperity by centralized planning, which inevitably leads to totalitarianism. “We have in effect undertaken to dispense with the forces which produced unforeseen results and to replace the impersonal and anonymous mechanism of the market by collective and ‘conscious’ direction of all social forces to deliberately chosen goals.”[10] Socialism, while presented as a means of assuring equality, does so through “restraint and servitude”, while “democracy seeks equality in liberty”.[11] Planning, because coercive, is an inferior method of regulation, while the cooperation of a free market is superior “because it is the only method by which our activities can be adjusted to each other without coercive or arbitrary intervention of authority”.[12]Centralized planning is inherently undemocratic, because it requires "that the will of a small minority be imposed upon the people..."[13] The power of these minorities to act by taking money or property in pursuit of centralized goals, destroys the Rule of Law and individual freedoms.[14] Where there is centralized planning, "the individual would more than ever become a mere means, to be used by the authority in the service of such abstractions as the 'social welfare' or the 'good of the community'".[15] Even the very poor have more personal freedom in an open society than a centrally planned one.[16] "[W]hile the last resort of a competitive economy is the bailiff, the ultimate sanction of a planned economy is the hangman."[17] Socialism is a hypocritical system, because its professed humanitarian goals can only be put into practice by brutal methods "of which most socialists disapprove".[18] Such centralized systems also require effective propaganda, so that the people come to believe that the state's goals are theirs.[19]
Hayek analyzes the roots of Nazism in socialism,[20] then draws parallels to the thought of British leaders:
The increasing veneration for the state, the admiration of power, and of bigness for bigness' sake, the enthusiasm for "organization" of everything (we now call it "planning") and that "inability to leave anything to the simple power of organic growth"...are all scarcely less marked in England now than they were in Germany.[21]Hayek believed that after World War II, "wisdom in the management of our economic affairs will be even more important than before and that the fate of our civilization will ultimately depend on how we solve the economic problems we shall then face".[22] The only chance to build a decent world is "to improve the general level of wealth" via the activities of free markets.[23] He saw international organization as involving a further threat to individual freedom.[24] He concluded: "The guiding principle that a policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy remains as true today as it was in the nineteenth century."[25]
No wonder he is so loved by the right.
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