Peter Bromberg's UnBlog

Before you get excited about the last minute Euro-Deal and the 340 point rally in the Dow, consider this: Wall Street has been dancing to Greece's whistle. If Greece says 'jump,' Wall Street jumps, if Greece says 'Sorry, false alarm,' Wall Street cries. This has been going on for about 2 years now, and it's getting pretty tired. Shame on you if you think everything's going to be fine just because Greece and/or its European pretend-to-be saviors announce another plan to come up with a plan. Greece is broke and has no significant revenue sources to pay off its debt. Foreign investors own about $385 billion worth of Greek government debt. Many banks and governments that own Greek debt are at the brink of insolvency already, so Greece's inability to pay its debt may push other countries and their banks into insolvency. You can't trust statements from European officials because they are trying to prevent panic. Panic will make any kind of solutions m...

This is a great letter, and it is real. To All My Valued Employees, There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country. Of course, as your employer, I am forbidden to tell you whom to vote for - it is against the law to discriminate based on political affiliation, race, creed, religion, etc. Please vote for who you think will serve your interests the best. However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interest.First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a backstory. This back story is often neglected and over...

Kevin Drum, writing in Mother Jones , proposes 5 “Myths” about some common economic issues that he claims aren’t true.  Liberal writers often suffer from a kind of confirmation bias when making such statements. This is the tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true. Let’s have a look at what Mr. Drum says, and I’ll provide my own “confirmation bias” to show that the statements are either false, or not wholly accurate: Myth #1 The Stimulus Failed The central theme of this assertion revolves around what FDR did during the Great Depression. Mr. Drum asserts (correctly) that FDR tackled the depression with inflation, easy monetary policy, and government spending. Then in 1937 spending was cut and monetary policy tightened up.    Mr. Drum reports that in 1938 the austerity program was abandoned and the economy started to grow again. What he doesn't report is that  FDR ra...

The purpose of the Petition Project is to demonstrate that the claim of “settled science” and an overwhelming “consensus” in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climatological damage is wrong. No such consensus or settled science exists. As indicated by the petition text and signatory list, a very large number of American scientists reject this hypothesis. Publicists at the United Nations, Al Gore, and their supporters frequently claim that only a few “skeptics” remain – skeptics who are still unconvinced about the existence of a catastrophic human-caused global warming emergency. It is evident that 31,487 Americans with university degrees in science – including 9,029 PhDs, are not "a few." Moreover, from the clear and strong petition statement that they have signed, it is evident that these 31,487 American scientists are not "skeptics." These scientists are instead convinced that the human-caused global war...

  I am often scolded by my liberal friends about how this past recession (2008) was different, we almost had an economic collapse, it was as bad or worse than the Great Depression, and various other items all underscoring the need for "more stimulus". They claim that we tried lower tax rates, etc. A quick look at the composition of the stimulus spending in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (see chart) reveals that the major portion of the spending was to transfers to state and local governments (mostly used for fiscal relief, which is temporary), transfers to persons (temporary) and "Tax Cuts" - almost all of which were temporary in nature. Temporary measures simply cannot provide permanent economic growth. They run out (as they already have), and you end up with more of the original problem that has never been solved in the first place. Plus - an even bigger debt burden. There are not many cases of economic collapse in modern histo...