07/11/2009
Productivity increased 9.5 percent in the nonfarm business sector during the third quarter of 2009 as unit labor costs fell 5.2 percent (seasonally adjusted annual rates). In manufacturing, productivity increased 13.6 percent while unit labor costs fell 7.1 percent…
Back in the 1930s there was a Polish Marxist economist, Michel Kalecki, who argued that recessions were functional for the ruling class and for capitalism because they created excess supply of labor, forced workers to work harder to keep their jobs, and so produced a rise in the rate of relative surplus-value.
For thirty years, ever since I got into this business, I have been mocking Michel Kalecki. I have been pointing out that recessions see a much sharper fall in profits than in wages. I have been saying that the pace of work slows in recessions—that employers are more concerned with keeping valuable employees in their value chains than using a temporary high level of unemployment to squeeze greater work effort out of their workers. I don’t think that I can mock Michel Kalecki any more, ever again.
„pitchforks?
(via champagnecandy)
(via robot-heart-politics)
(via continuum)
Quote posted at 11:01
06/11/2009
Yves Smith in Mirabile Dictu! Goldman Lost Money Only One Day in Last Quarter « naked capitalism
Quote posted at 21:06
Absolute Perfection: Goldman Loses Money On Just One Trading Day In Q3 | zero hedge
Quote posted at 19:06
Absolute Perfection: Goldman Loses Money On Just One Trading Day In Q3 | zero hedge
Quote posted at 17:05
AlphaNinja: Goldman’s q3 trading revenue down, hit-rate up (GS)
Quote posted at 13:02
Dirk Bezemer in FT.com / Comment / Opinion - Lending must support the real economy
Quote posted at 09:02
05/11/2009
Dirk Bezemer in FT.com / Comment / Opinion - Lending must support the real economy
Quote posted at 21:05
Dirk Bezemer in FT.com / Comment / Opinion - Lending must support the real economy
Quote posted at 17:03
The Wall Street Journal reports today that Goldman Sachs is trying to arrange to buy tax credits from Fannie Mae. Obviously, it would buy them at a discount.
Goldman, you may recall, was saved with taxpayer money when the panic spread last year. A naïve person might think such a company would see a patriotic virtue in paying taxes.
Fannie Mae is currently a ward of the government. So this boils down to a proposal to pay Uncle Sam perhaps 15 cents to avoid paying 20 cents to Uncle Sam. The gall involved in even proposing such a thing is awesome.
„Floyd Norris in Worst Idea of 2009 - Floyd Norris Blog - NYTimes.com
Quote posted at 15:02
04/11/2009
» Wal-Mart's stingy sick-leave policy may contribute to swine flu's spread
So concludes a new report from the National Labor Committee that finds that employees of the Arkansas-based retail giant — even its food handlers — feel they have no choice but to work when they’re sick. That’s because the company gives workers demerits and deducts pay for staying home when they’re sick or caring for sick children. The report found that the only time the company is removing sick workers from the food section is when they are coughing too loudly or violently — and then the person is merely transferred to another department rather than being sent home. Wal-Mart’s sick-leave policy conflicts with recommendations for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which calls on employers to advise workers to be alert for symptoms of flu-like illness and to stay home if they are ill. The CDC also asks employers to allow workers to stay home to care for sick family membersvia Facing South
…because we all needed another reason to hate Wal-Mart.
Link posted at 21:14
02/11/2009
“Great Frontline last nite: How Wall St heist began w/ Rubin/Summers shutting down the woman who tried to stop them” - Michael Moore
watch it in it’s entirety above.
This is excellent. An excerpt of the transcript:
MICHAEL KIRK: [Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairperson Brooksley] Born believed the lack of transparency left the [over the counter derivatives] market open to fraud.
Joe Nocera’s a reporter with the New York Times. He says fraud came up during Born’s first meeting with the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan.
JOE NOCERA: He said something to the effect that, “Well, Brooksley, we are never going to agree on fraud. You probably think there should be rules against it.” And she said, “Well, yes, I do.” He said, “You know, I think the market will figure it out and take care of the fraudsters.”
Instead of taking the hint, Born began investigating. She immediately ran up against opposition from the president’s Working Group on financial markets. She even got an angry call from Larry Summers, the Deputy Treasury Secretary.
BORN: They were totally opposed to it. That puzzled me. You know, what was it that was in this market that had to be hidden? So, it made me very suspicious and troubled.
Summers, his boss at the Treasury Robert Rubin, and Alan Greenspan were big believers in letting the markets look after themselves.
…And we all know how well that worked out.
Video posted at 11:51
28/10/2009
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, quoted by Aaron Smith, in IRS says its ready to take on brave new world of tax cheats - Oct. 27, 2009
Quote posted at 13:02
In the months leading up to the September 2008 collapse of giant insurer American International Group Inc., Elias Habayeb and his colleagues worked nights and weekends negotiating with banks that had bought $62 billion of credit-default swaps from AIG, according to a person who has worked with Habayeb.
Habayeb, 37, was chief financial officer for the AIG division that oversaw AIG Financial Products, the unit that had sold the swaps to the banks. One of his goals was to persuade the banks to accept discounts of as much as 40 cents on the dollar, according to people familiar with the matter.
Among AIG’s bank counterparties were New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co., Paris-based Societe Generale SA and Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank AG.
[…]
Part of a sentence in the document was crossed out. It contained a blank space that was intended to show the amount of the haircut the banks would take, according to people who saw the term sheet. After less than a week of private negotiations with the banks, the New York Fed instructed AIG to pay them par, or 100 cents on the dollar. The content of its deliberations has never been made public.
„Richard Teitelbaum and Hugh Son in New York Fed’s Secret Choice to Pay for Swaps Hits Taxpayers - Bloomberg.com
Quote posted at 11:00
27/10/2009
David Heath in Business & Technology | Part two | WaMu: Hometown bank turned predatory | Seattle Times Newspaper
Quote posted at 19:07
“America’s Priorities,” by the Beltway elite - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com (via apsies) (via robot-heart-politics)
Quote posted at 15:07
