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Low rating news channel Sky news Australia has called upon low polling Opposition leader the Dark Lord Peter Dutton to listen to them and follow their agenda if he wants to become PM. ”No one has their finger pressed as... Read More ›

Hospital epidemiologists are following the science. Is anybody else?

The delusional cult actually believes him. But that’s because of Fox news and the wingnut media: Needless to say, people all over the world were laughing — nervously — for four long years, aghast that we could elect such a cretin and terrified that he was going to make a terrible mistake. But I’m sure his cult didn’t know about it. All they heard was how magnificently he was doing and how much the whole world respected him. It is an Orwellian horror but thankfully, so far, it only affects a large minority of the public.

1 tablespoon instant minced onion½ cup milk1½ pounds ground beef1 slightly beaten egg½ cup quick-cooking rolled oats2 teaspoons salt¼ teaspoon coarsely ground pepperKitchen bouquet1 8-ounce can (1 cup) spaghetti sauce with mushrooms1 8-ounce can (1 cup) kidney beansButtered, toasted French bread slices Soak onion in milk 5 minutes; mix in ground beef, egg, rolled oats, […]

Featuring articles by James B. Thomson and Walker F. Todd, Claudia Sahm, Gerald Epstein, Ronnie J. Phillips, Anastasia Nesvetailova, Gerald P. O’Driscoll, Jr., William Bergman, and Thomas Ferguson

After a bitter and bruising election contest, Humza Yousaf has won the Scottish National Party’s (SNP) leadership and become Scotland’s First Minister. His victory over his nearest rival, Kate Forbes, was far from convincing. Yousaf won 48.2 percent first preference votes to Forbes’ 40.7 percent. As neither candidate gained over 50 percent, the second preferences […]

There is a banking crisis. Again. Banking regulators were asleep at the switch. Again.

The present crisis is not a replay of 2007-08, which was centered around housing. In that crisis, lenders took on too much credit risk. Additionally, financial institutions relied on exotic financial products to protects, such as derivatives, to protect against risk. The products failed to do so. Lawmakers and regulators reacted by placing new constraints on credit risk.

Thomas Hoenig, former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and former Vice-Chairman of the FDIC, argues that “Another Banking Crisis was Predictable.” In response to the last banking crisis, the Fed’s risk models were focused on credit risk, while Silicon Valley Bank’s portfolio was heavily exposed to interest-rate (“duration”) risk. Once the Fed began hiking interest rates, the value of SVBs assets began falling.

A federal government guarantee or 100% reserve banking? Which is better?

Not long after arriving to teach economics at Colorado State University nearly four decades ago, I was introduced to a retired economist living in Fort Collins who had a simple idea for solving the problem of bank runs: require banks to have the cash on hand whenever the depositor wished to withdraw. Lloyd W. Mints had been one of the founders of the Chicago School of Economics along with Henry Simons and Frank Knight. The proposal, which has a history going back to at least the early 19th century, has variously been called 100% reserves, full reserve banking, or the Chicago Plan for Banking Reform.

Yet more signs of TUC/Labour pressure as NASUWT puts pathetic government pay offer to teachers Teachers have reacted with fury after their unions asked them to ‘consider’ an appallingly insulting pay offer from the government. The proposed ‘deal’ consists of a one-off, unfunded payment of £1000 for the current year and a derisory, far below […]

Bank failures don't threaten most deposits, but they do threaten jobs

At the last FOMC press conference, Fed Chair Jay Powell assured us that “all depositors' savings and the banking system are safe.” The failure of Silicon Valley Bank less than two weeks earlier had started a debate about whose deposits were safe. Specifically, whether deposits greater than $250,000, which are not FDIC insured, would be protected like the smaller, insured deposits. In the end, Silicon Valley and Signature Bank, which also failed, were deemed systemic risks, so all depositors received their money.

The explanation of systematic breakdowns in supervisory oversight over time must include the shift in Federal Reserve culture during and after the 1990s

The closing of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) on March 17 began a series of extraordinary steps taken by key supervisors of the global financial system (United States, United Kingdom, and Switzerland), all of which tell us that we are not living in normal times. From the US Treasury’s approval of a “systemic risk exception” for SVB, thus allowing a blanket government guarantee of all its deposits, to the precedent-setting rescue of all deposits at Credit Suisse, ordinary understandings of the law were stretched to and probably beyond their limits.

~ Today's Water Cooler ~

The last few months, culminating in the announcement about the AUKUS agreement and the release of the 2023 IPCC Synthesis Report, have probably crystallised for many Australians a realisation that they are headed towards a future that is truly frightening. Australia along with the rest of the world is facing the prospect of self-harm or Continue reading »

Foreign Minister, Penny Wong has asserted that Australia does not accept that Israel is an apartheid State. Freedom of information (FOI) documents have exposed that this position is not based on DFAT legal advice. The concerns of many Australians that their government, through trade and other dealings, or by even visiting Israel, might be making Continue reading »

Inexorably, the war on Syria is coming to a close. Arab governments that supported the war in 2011 are sending delegations to Damascus, while Syria is sending delegates to Arab capitals, with Bashar al Assad recently visiting Abu Dhabi and Oman. Saudi Arabia and Iran have taken the first steps towards reestablishing diplomatic relations, hastening Continue reading »

At least until the 1964 Freedom Rides, Australia had a Jim Crow system every bit as bad as in the American South. Modern Anglo-Australians sometimes congratulate themselves about that moment in white Australia’s progress to semi-civilisation 56 years ago when Australian voters acknowledged Australia’s original inhabitants, and grudgingly allowed that they could be numbered among Continue reading »

The greatest threat to human health is environmental destruction, primarily due to climate change, and worsened by biodiversity loss and pollution. It needs addressing immediately by cooperative action throughout society. But societal cooperation is severely challenged by gross inequality, confusion from misinformation, and bigotry against certain ‘others’, so that the required climate action has failed Continue reading »

As international tensions rise to a new level, with the Ukraine war passing its first anniversary and the Albanese Government set to announce its commitment of hundreds of billions of dollars to new weaponry, nuclear propelled subs, stealth bombers etc, The Road to War brings into sharp focus why it is not in Australia’s best Continue reading »

This past weekend, Donald Trump proved that he can still draw a crowd after appearing before an estimated crowd of at least 15,000 fans for the first rally of his 2024 campaign. He arrived on “Trump Force One” and circled the event before landing to the strains of “Danger Zone” from “Top Gun.” His entrance to the arena was even more provocative: That song was recorded by the “J6 Choir,” made up of the inmates in the D.C. jail whom the court has deemed too dangerous or too much of a flight risk to be allowed out on bail. Some have already pleaded guilty. That Trump showed up in Waco, Texas, on the 30th anniversary of the 52-day standoff between the FBI and a small religious sect in their remote compound there, and open the event with images of Jan. 6, was described by his staff a a total coincidence. It was just a normal campaign stop, they insisted. (Sure it was.) The opening acts weren’t exactly A-list. He had Ted Nugent demanding his money back because he “didn’t authorize any money to Ukraine, to some homosexual weirdo,” apparently referring to Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“A divided House on Friday approved legislation that would mandate that schools make library catalogs and curriculums public, and that they obtain parental consent before honoring a student’s request to change their gender-identifying pronouns, part of a Republican effort to wring political advantage from a raging debate over contentious social issues.” — New York Times

I support the passage of the Parents Bill of Rights because I believe every parent should have the right to be involved in their child’s school, whether through censoring curriculum, banning books, or blocking kids from choosing their own pronouns.

Austerity for ordinary citizens and bank rescues for the affluent is a toxic mix

Not even ChatGPT could dream this up: Fifteen years after the whole world financial system collapsed and barely a decade since we were told the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill fixed the problems in the US system, two major regional banks in the U.S. are down and depositors are fleeing from many, many more.

Well, that didn’t go well. I noted over the weekend that the Israeli defense minister had called for the government to at least postpone its “judicial reforms” because the military was starting to fracture over the issue and it was threat to national security. On Sunday, Prime Minister Netanyahu fired the defense minister — and the country looks like it’s exploding. This Liveblog of the “night of chaos” is stunning. An excerpt: Anti-judicial coup protesters are blocking roads and intersections at multiple locations across Israel on Sunday night to protest Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to fire Defense Minister Gallant. According to police, demonstrations are taking place at over 150 locations. Bibi wants to make these judiciary changes to protect himself from the corruption charges that hang over his head and he has a slim 4 vote majority which he cobbled together by selling his soul to the far right, which wants to hobble the independent judiciary for its own purposes. The systems are very different and it’s not useful to make too many comparisons. But damn, there’s a lot in there that sounds familiar, no?