News Links: Iceland fared better by letting its banks fail

I posted this first link on twitter yesterday afternoon and it got a ton of retweets. I have seen a lot of people link out to it.

Bottom line: the concept that bankruptcy is part and parcel of capitalism resonates with people. And that’s why we are viscerally opposed to bailouts, no matter how much the Tim Geithners of the world want to defend them.

• Iceland fared better than us by letting its banks fail – Irish, Business – Independent.ie

  ICELAND pursued better policies than Ireland or Latvia when the three countries’ economies collapsed in 2007 because the Reykjavik government allowed banks to fail, according to a new report by the influential Bruegel think tank.

• Irish bonds give big returns after decision not to ‘burn’ investors – Irish, Business – Independent.ie

  Irish bonds performed twice as well as bonds generally even though bonds did far better last year than shares or commodities. Irish 10-year paper was up 12pc in the year despite huge volatility throughout 2011.

• Irish manufacturing shrinks as demand falls – Telegraph

  Ireland’s manufacturing sector contracted for a second straight month in December as economic uncertainty globally hurt demand and businesses were squeezed by higher costs and lower prices for their products, a survey showed on Tuesday.

• China market: Handset makers form alliance to counter possible patent infringement lawsuits

  A number of handset makers in China, including Lenovo, ZTE, TCL, Coolpad and Konka, has formed an alliance in preparation to counter possible patent infringement lawsuits to bring upon by international players, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

• Banker’s wife: ‘I knew what I was getting into’ | Joris Luyendijk | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

  A lawyer explains her patience with the demands of work on her spouse, as part of Joris Luyendijk’s Voices of finance series

• A Christmas Message From America’s Rich | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone

  It seems America’s bankers are tired of all the abuse. They’ve decided to speak out.

• Jobmarkt: Arbeitslosigkeit im Jahr 2011 fällt auf 20-Jahres-Tief – Nachrichten Wirtschaft – WELT ONLINE

  Im Jahr 2011 waren im Schnitt 2,976 Millionen Menschen in Deutschland ohne Job. Weniger Arbeitslose hatte es zuletzt vor 20 Jahren gegeben

• MMT is biased towards anti-crony | Bill Mitchell – billy blog

  the JG functions as an automatic stabiliser rather than as a discretionary program. It builds further endogeneity into the budget balance. When the economy turns down, the JG pool of workers will rise as displaced workers elect to take the guarantee. When the economy starts to improve again, the private sector merely has to offer a wage (or conditions) better than the JG wage and the JG pool will decline again.

• Greece will leave euro if second bailout fails, says Kapsis – Telegraph

  Greece will have to leave the eurozone if it fails to clinch a deal on a second, 130 billion euro bailout with its international lenders, a government spokesman said on Tuesday.

• Bruce Bartlett: The True Federal Debt – NYTimes.com

  With interest rates at historical lows and the vast bulk of the debt in the form of short-term securities that roll over rapidly, the figures in the chart above are probably conservative. It is not hard to envision a situation in which interest on the debt rises more quickly than spending can be cut – a problem many European nations are in today. It’s essential that we strive to overcome budgetary myopia. Our debts are manageable, but only if we take a long-run perspective.

• Youssou Ndour annonce sa candidature à la présidentielle sénégalaise

  Le chanteur-vedette sénégalais Youssou Ndour, 52 ans, a annoncé lundi 2 janvier au soir qu’il sera candidat à l’élection présidentielle de février, dans une déclaration sur la radio et la télévision Futurs Médias (RFM et TFM), qui appartiennent à son groupe de presse.

• Wikimedia Foundation Raises $20 Million From 1 Million+ Donors | TechCrunch

  Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia and other sites, this morning announced that they’ve raised $20 million from more than a million donors, shattering a record once again. The organization says donations have risen every year since its global fundraising campaigns began in 2003.

• Iran missile test seen as warning to west – FT.com

  Iran has launched a long-range missile during naval exercises in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, the latest show of defiance by Tehran as the west weighs tighter sanctions over its nuclear programme.

• Why I’m Not a Bleeding-Heart Libertarian | Bleeding Heart Libertarians

  Labels aside, I’m more interested in arguing with standard liberals about the nature and scope of specially-protected rights and liberties within the settled context of the liberal-democratic nation-state than in arguing with standard libertarians about the justification of taxation, publicly-financed education, or welfare transfers. After all, there are many orders of magnitude more standard liberals than standard libertarians, and they possess many orders of magnitude more influence. We pick our fights, and I’d like to pick ones that stand a chance of making a real difference.

• Spain makes €9bn budget cuts to cover rising deficit | Business | The Guardian

  The full budget, designed to meet Spain’s target of €16.5bn in budget cuts, will be presented to parliament on 31 March

• Nobody Understands Debt – NYTimes.com

  debt incurred to win World War II. Taxpayers were on the hook for a debt that was significantly bigger, as a percentage of G.D.P., than debt today; but that debt was also owned by taxpayers, such as all the people who bought savings bonds. So the debt didn’t make postwar America poorer. In particular, the debt didn’t prevent the postwar generation from experiencing the biggest rise in incomes and living standards in our nation’s history.

• Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: 2012 could be the year Germany lets the euro die – Telegraph

  So we enter Year IV of the Long Slump, the cruellest yet though not the most acute.

• Altersversorgung: Wirtschaftsweise langfristig für Rente mit 69 – Nachrichten Wirtschaft – WELT ONLINE

  Die Rente mit 67 ist längst nicht die Lösung für Deutschlands alternde Gesellschaft. Wirtschaftsweiser Franz geht langfristig von noch längerer Arbeitszeit aus.

• Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies – Salon.com

  Progressives would feel much better about themselves, their Party and their candidate if they only had to oppose, say, Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann. That’s because the standard GOP candidate agrees with Obama on many of these issues and is even worse on these others, so progressives can feel good about themselves for supporting Obama

• Rethinking the Growth Imperative – Kenneth Rogoff – Project Syndicate

  In a period of great economic uncertainty, it may seem inappropriate to question the growth imperative. But, then again, perhaps a crisis is exactly the occasion to rethink the longer-term goals of global economic policy.

• Unemployed Portuguese told to ‘just emigrate’ – Features – Al Jazeera English

  Portugal’s prime minister has been criticised for suggesting that unemployed youth leave the country to find work.

• Crowd-Sourcing the Revolving Door « naked capitalism

  This chart of Venn Diagrams (New Year’s Day links) is a nifty visualization[1] that shows how many, many people, through the operations of Washington’s revolving door, have held high-level positions both in the Federal government and in major corporations.

• Mike Norman Economics: On the future evolution of MMT

  Going forward, we need to be thinking out the box, or we are going to be boxed in as a species by resource constraints. Then it will be too late for many, perhaps most, to even be considering the good life, since they will be so taken up with just trying to stay alive in the face of extreme adversity and enormous challenges. That would amount to moving backwards. Some scientists have concerns about the future of humanity if the course is not altered in a timely fashion. The present course, they claim, is unsustainable based on resource availability and resource use. Something has to give. MMT shows how to avoid some of these challenges within the context and confines of the existing system.

• SoundCloud gets $50 million in new funding – Tech News and Analysis

  SoundCloud, a Berlin-based web audio startup has raised $50 million in new funding from investors led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Mike Butcher reports. GGV Capital also participated. The company, in a press release confirmed that it raised the funds but it isn’t releasing information about how much money it got from the investors. Previous investors in the company include Union Square Ventures, Index Ventures and Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures.

• Can Ron Paul Pull Off a Youth Revolt in Iowa? | Swampland | TIME.com

  One look at Richardson, a 28-year-old factory worker, and it was clear he had already been won over. Along with a thick nose ring, he sported a Paul beanie and a Paul T-shirt bearing Iowa’s state motto: "Our liberties we prize, and our rights we will maintain." Richardson is one of many young people rallying to the 76-year-old Republican’s candidacy. Some, like Richardson, have volunteered for him and are committed to voting for him; others are just intrigued. But the appeal is undeniable, and it could well determine where Paul finishes in Tuesday’s first-in-the-nation caucuses.

• iPhone Siri software tells boy, 12, to ‘shut up’ in Tesco – Technology, Business – Independent.ie

  Charlie Le Quesne was trying out the iPhone 4S at a Tesco store in Coventry when it told him: "Shut the f*** up, you ugly t***."