Econintersect: Click Read more >> below graphic to see today’s list.
The top of today’s reading list explains why Spitzer’s return terrifies big finance …….. and the last article is about “oddities” in China’s GDP numbers.
- Why Spitzer’s Return Terrifies Big Finance (Thomas Ferguson, Naked Capitalism)
- For the Love of Munis…or at Least 4 Reasons to Like Them (Peter Hayes, iShares Blog)
- The Short List of Candidates to Replace Janet Napolitano at DHS (Daniel Klaidman, The Daily Beast)
- How Pentagon’s payroll quagmire traps soldiers (Scot J. Paltrow and Kelly Carr, Reuters) After medical care, the second most shameful performance by our military system.
- Americans Get ‘F’ in Health Insurance Understanding: LIMRA (Danielle Andrus, ThinkAdvisor) Take the quiz. GEI Editor got 8 of 10 correct.
- The Republic of Choosing: A Behaviorist Goes to Washington (William H. Simon, Boston Review) Irrationality of individual actions is both routine and predictable.
- The Eurozone is on the verge of repeating Japan’s lost decade (Sober Look) This article shows how Europe is starting to follow the same debt deflation path as Japan has over the past 25 years. See also Edward Harrison’s analysis from May at Credit Writedowns.
- Why student loans are needless and harmful. The terrible Oregon mistake. (Rodger Malcolm Mitchell, Monetary Sovereignty) Rodger Malcolm Mitchell contributes to Global Economic Intersection.
- A Shuffle of Aluminum, but to Banks, Pure Gold (David Kocieniewski, The New York Times) Hat tips to BJ Novack (Done in Style) and Roger Erickson. Providing storage services seems like a necessary business. But shuffling commodities from storehouse to storehouse daily and then back again later to inflate income is pure extraction, plain and simple. Who are the makers and who are the takers here? Read also How Goldman Made $5 Billion By Manipulating Aluminum Inventories (and Copper is Up Next) (Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism) and a condemnation of commodity manipulation by Goldman Sachs, Ban Goldman Sachs from Playing in Commodity Markets (EconMatters). Both Yves Smith and EconMatters have contributed to Global Economic Intersection. See also Banks’ influence over raw materials supply chain under scrutiny (Gregory Meyer and Tom Braithwaite, Financial Times)
- Too much profit on Wall Street (Tom Braithwaite, Financial Times) “Banks have issued so many warnings about regulation that they cannot now admit that they are thriving.”
- Some observations and oddities in China’s Q2 GDP (Kate MaKenzie, FTAlphaville) “China may actually miss its forecast (7.5 per cent) for the full year.”
