Juggling Dynamite

This panel discussion is long and detailed, but well worth the time. Especially the second half. The most relevant and insightful comments I have heard in some time. Enjoy.

The Global Minotaur: The Crash of 2008 and the Euro-Zone Crisis in Historical Perspective. Panel discussion with Yanis Varoufakis & Justin Fox; Chair: Mark Mazower, Wednesday, 9 November, 2011. Here is a direct video link.

The newly appointed Greek Finance Minister has been writing and speaking about the European crisis for years as an academic. He wrote a paper proposing steps to resolve the Euro crisis in July 2013, with University of Texas colleague James Galbraith. You can read it here: A Modest Proposal for Resolving the Eurozone Crisis, Version 4.0.

In a special report for Channel 4 News in 2012, Varoufakis confronted the popular narrative that characterizes Greeks as lazy grasshoppers and northern Europeans as the hardworking ants. The true grasshoppers, Varoufakis explains, are the investment banks who created the global credit crisis and then bailed themselves out by shackling working people all over with impossible debt levels.  Here is a direct video link.

In 2011, Varoufakis also sat down with Steve Paikin to discuss the evolving economic order in Europe and America, including why he had no intention of becoming Greek finance minister…LOL. Here is a direct video link.

Varoufakis understands the issues, the math, and viable solutions better than most other commentators and politicians. Of course the banking cartel don’t like his assessment of their pivotal role as architects of the great financial crisis, nor his insistence that they must admit they made bad loans and write off and restructure debt, as a critical part of resolving the European crisis. Other European countries, also buried in debt the past decade, are watching all of this very closely. On an international level, we are now hearing the most honest discussion of the true factors behind the 2008 financial crisis, seen to date.

This is progress. At long last, we could be approaching our generation’s much needed Pecora commission-like epiphany about the need to bring back Glass-Steagall divisions in the global banking system, and force the debt genie back into the bottle once more.

Big retail chains are announcing closures, downsizing and bankruptcy.  This will mean more layoffs.  For some recent updates see: Retail Detail: A Slew of Companies Filing for Chapter 11. Here is a direct video link.

Analysts are suggesting “no compelling fashion trend” is to blame??  How about mammoth over supply in retail following the credit bubble build-out, consumers with little savings, no appetite for more debt, an aging population that buys less, and poor income growth–both in workers, and in retirees who have less spending power thanks to zero-bound interest rates.

Imploding retail is a secular theme with staying power, as the bloated sector right-sizes to balance with available demand. Retail-centric REITs and developers are in for some tough times too.  As are the income-seeking people who have purchased their shares for ‘conservative’ cash flow…yikes.