Readers, I've also posted my comment as posted on Emerson's blog Haquelebac. See the link at the end of Emerson's essay. Funny thing about positivism, you don't really want to show up in the middle of a muddle of positivists with an anti-positivist critique in hand. I know I did it, entirely naively in a positivist domain where spouting about the philosophy of social sciences is considered well defended. It so has a thorough cult like nature of the formalisms. for now, Tadit Anderson

this article begins with these quotes:

Friends and readers, this is a fairly weak article in some ways, and it puts a fairly large amount of information into a small space. AND, I said "AND," it is still a thin coverage. I am going edit this down and supplement the content into a trifold. It has a lot basic information unmasking the economic fraud being perpetrated on multiple fronts, and which rely upon low levels of economic literacy.

This is a decent article for the most part, though it doesn't deal enough imo with alternative economic models or the deep economic principles mutating the capacities. He has a strongly sarcastic tone, which is actually good imo, though people need to hear that in his text and not take every thing he states in a literal fashion. for now, Tadit Anderson

Readers in this article William Black shows less his white collar criminologist, and much more his post Keynesian aspect. His writing here is also his usual clear self. Tadit Anderson

Gary O’Callaghan, a former IMF economist has written about his distress over what he views as the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) destructive policies toward the periphery.

Readers, This is one of Michael Hudson's best recent commentary on the general economic globaL devolution. In a strong sense what he is describing is the natural limits to an economics based upon class based avarice and usury, which has hollowed out the real economy to serve profoundly anti-economic interests, In effect what is going on is at the level of even deeper plundering of public assets and the real economy. Remember for the faith based economists and particularly the refuse peddlers dominating the academic context, you have to also follow the money.

Readers, while Dean Baker is fairly reasonable in his expectations, as has happened before Baker does not seem to understand economics very well. This has been particularly evident in his acceptance of the austerity agenda, though he objects to the political use of that agenda. He is essentially a neo-classical economist though somewhat liberal

UK Telegragh Published 04 May 2010

For the past half century, academic economists, Wall Street traders, and everyone in between have been led astray by fairy tales about the wonders of unregulated markets and the limitless benefits of financial innovation. The crisis dealt a body blow to that belief system, but nothing has replaced it.

U.S. consumers defaulted on store-branded credit cards at near-record levels during the holiday shopping season, with 2010 likely to bring more of the same trend, according to Fitch Ratings. Fitch's December Retail Credit Card Index results show that more than one in every eight dollars of receivables was written off as uncollectable during the November collection period on an annualized basis. Taken with the recent delinquency trends and Fitch's expectation for unemployment, Fitch expects retail card chargeoffs to remain elevated throughout first half-2010.

I recently attended a financial markets conference at which some pension funds managers as well as a former head of the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC, the FDIC of the pension world) spoke. Private pensions are just over 80% funded, meaning that the value of accumulated assets falls short of meeting promised pay-outs of defined benefit pension plans by about a fifth, amounting to a $400 billion shortfall. Not surprisingly, they are down considerably due to losses incurred during the financial crisis.

Readers: This is in effect an admission that the way that the TARP process was managed was fraudulent.

By DAVID ENRICH

U.S. regulators have seized or threatened at least 27 banks that received capital infusions from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, including some lenders that government officials knew were troubled when they awarded the money.