Very, very interesting -- thanks for the sift!

I'd love to see more, specifically about the US / Cuba talks and the Pope's involvement. As an atheist, I tend to think of Catholicism / the Pope / organized religion in general as generally having a primarily negative influence on world affairs (Crusades, Inquisition, birth control, anti-condoms, molestation, homophobia, etc.), but negotiating peace and better relations between the US and Cuba is a pretty undeniably positive thing.

I knew Latin American countries were highly Catholic, but I kinda figured that some of the USSR anti-religious stance would have rubbed off on Cuba. I guess maybe it did, but the missile crisis and fall of the Berlin wall / end of the cold war was long enough ago that Cuba has greater freedom to make up their own minds on this sort of thing.

Enough so that perhaps the Pope's involvement was necessary, or at least very helpful, to act as a mediator between the two sides. Props where props are due.

Anyway, all quite interesting.

you have people living in artificial environments that use tons of power because they want to, because they like it, not because they REQUIRE it. native americans lived in southwest USA for a thousand years just fine without the need of AC or diverting rivers.

go read up on the absurd agricultural subsidies tied to the colorado river- that isnt a problem created because farmers need to produce food to feed the world, its a problem created because politicians want money making businesses to tax, and because people are willing to spend money to eat what they like instead of what there is, a lot of money is made.

same with trawling- nothing to do with feeding all those people, everything to do with money. trawling has been going on for over a hundred years, well before the world population was even a 3rd of what it is currently- fishermen trawl because they want to be efficient because that makes them more money, not because they are concerned about how they are going to feed undernourished people.

the problem isnt getting people to eat insects. the problem is getting the developed world to stop eating so much, especially so much meat. there is an obesity epidemic around the world, over 3000 tons of food are discarded every day, and you want to tell me the problem is not enough food?

and lets not be disingenuous about nuclear waste, nuclear technology was invented as a weapon, not an energy source. you're telling me that if tomorrow a terrible plague wiped out 90% of the earths population, that nuclear armed states would give up their nuclear weapons? bs.

the video is on point. the environmental crisis is caused by greed, not because there are too many people on the planet. and if you feel so strongly that there are too many people on the planet, I assume you are relieved when your family members die? Unless you are willing to volunteer yourself and your family to die for the greater good, overpopulation is a facile bogey man to mask what you really want to say- lets get rid of all those "other" people so *I* dont have to change my own lifestyle.

Acceleration is a big factor if you're doing any evasive maneuvering, because turning scrubs speed and you have to gain it back, preferably fast. It's not everything, but it matters.

Don't get me wrong, I do admit there are interesting, possibly unique, even useful features of the F-35, I just don't see any need for it, and certainly not at the price. When was the last time an American was shot down in a jet fighter?

My main issue with this plane is that it's sold as a replacement to nearly ALL other planes, which it had to be because of it's price tag. It doesn't do most of it's 'jobs' as well as the planes it replaces, is incredibly more expensive than they are, and they weren't in need of replacement in the first place, so why did we have this $1.3 trillion poorly performing jobs program for the aerospace industry during an economic crisis? We had much better things to spend that money on, and killing this plane project would not make us a whit less safe or ready.

Nice, I like that idea, a swarm of jammer drones to eliminate all electronic advantages. I'll put your name in the hat for the evil super genius prize this year.

Agreed, the 1 on 1 fighting scenario is not the plan anymore. That doesn't mean it never happens though, or won't ever happen in the future, and as Americans we want/expect to win every single time.

Sorry, I've tasted vegetarian bacon and it simply doesn't measure up. Even the seitan fake bacon, which is close, lacks the proper crispness and flavor.

I fully support anyone's choice to make the sacrifice to their lifestyle by skipping animal products, but even the best fake meat alternatives do not completely measure up to the real ones in taste and texture.

Everything dies and, outside of the 'civilized' food chain, most every creature dies from old age or by being eaten (sometimes while still alive). If I were to go into a cage full of lions, I don't think they would have a crisis of conscience over my level of sentience in deciding whether or not to eat me.

Though this might interest you http://videosift.com/video/yanis-varoufakis-the-origins-of-the-european-economic-crisis

Your video, seth meyers-a closer look at flint michigan water crisis, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

@RedSky

First, if it were up to me, you could take over as Minister of Finance in this country tomorrow. Our differences seem miniscule compared to what horrendous policies our last three MoF have pushed. The one prior, ironically, was dubbed the most dangerous man in Europe by The Sun.

We're in agreement on almost everything you mentioned in your last comment, so I'll focus on what I perceive differently.

First, I'd differentiate between fiscal stimulus and fiscal spending, the former being a situational application of the latter. As you said, fiscal stimulus during an economic crisis tends to be inadequate with regards to our macroeconomic objectives. You can neither whip out plans for major investments at a whim nor can you mobilize the neccessary resources quickly enough to make a difference and still be reasonable efficient. Not to mention that it only affects certain parts of the economy (construction, mostly), leaving others completely in the wind. So I'm with you on that one, it's a terribly inefficient and ineffective approach.

Automatic stabilizers work magnificently in this regard, but they barely take any pressure from the lower wage groups, especially if unemployment benefits come with a metric ton of strings attached, as is the case in Germany. A basic income guarantee might work, but that's an entirely different discussion.

The problem I see with merely relying on reasonable automatic stabilizers in the form of payments is that they do put a floor into demand, but do very little to tackle the problem of persistent unemployment due to a lack of jobs. As useful as training and education are, the mere number of highly educated people forced to work mundane jobs tells me that, at best, it doesn't work, and at worst pushes a systemic problem onto the individual, leading to immense pressure. Not to mention the psychological effects of being unemployed when employment is tauted as a defining attribute of a proper person -- aka the demonization of the unemployed.

It's still somewhat decent in Australia, but in Europe... it's quite a horrible experience.

Anyway, my point is that I'd rather see a lot more fiscal spending (permanent!) in the shape of public sector jobs. A lot of work cannot be valued properly by the market; should be done without the expectation of a return of investment (hospitals, anyone?); occurs in sectors of natural monopolies -- all of that should be publicly run. A job guarantee, like your fellow countryman Bill Mitchell advocates quite clearly, might be an approach worth trying out. Economy in the shit? More people on the public payroll, at rather low (but living wage!) wages. Do it at the county/city level and you can create almost any kind of job. If the private sector wants those people instead, they'd have to offer better working conditions. No more blackmail through the fear of unemployment -- you can always take a public job, even if it is at a meagre pay.

I should probably have mentioned that I don't buy into the notion of a stable market. From where I am standing, it's inherently unstable, be it through monopolies/oligopolies, dodging of laws and regulations (Uber), impossibility to price-in externalities (environmental damage most of all) or plain, old cost-cutting leading to a system-wide depression of demand. I'm fine with interfering in the market wherever it fails to deliver on our macroeconomic objectives -- which at this point in time is almost everywhere, basically.

Healthcare is all the rage these days, thanks to the primaries. I'd take the publicly-run NHS over the privately-run abomination in the US any day of the week. And that's after all the cuts and privatizations of the last two decades that did a horrible number on the NHS. Fuck ATOS, while we're at it.

Same for the railroad: the pre-privatization Bundesbahn in Germany was something to be proud of and an immeasurable boost of both the economy and the general standard of living.

In the mid/long run, the effects of automation and climate change-induced migration will put an end to the idea of full employment, but for the time being, there's still plenty of work to be done, plenty of idle resources to be employed, and just nobody to finance it. So why not finance it through the printing press until capacity is reached?

As for the Venezuela comparison: I don't think it fits in this case. Neither does Weimar Germany, which is paraded around quite regularly. Both Venezuela and Weimar Germany had massive supply-side problems. They didn't have the production capacity nor the resources to meet the demand they created by spending money into circulation. If an economy runs at or above its capacity, any additional spending, wherever it comes from, will cause inflation. But both Europe and the US are operating faaar below capacity in any measurable metric. You mentioned LRAS yourself. I think most estimates of it, as well as most estimates of NAIRU, are off quite significantly so as to not take the pressure off the wage slaves in the lowest income sector. You need mass unemployment to keep them in line.

As you said, the participation rate is woefully low, so there's ample space. And I'd rather overshoot and cause a short spike in inflation than remain below potential and leave millions to unneccessary misery.

Given the high level of private debt, there will be no increase in spending on that front. Corporations don't feel the need to invest, since demand is down and their own vaults are filled to the brim with cash. So if the private sector intends to net save, you either have to run a current account surplus (aka leech demand from other countries) or a fiscal deficit. Doesn't work any other way, sectoral balances always sum up to zero, by definition. If we want to reduce the dangerous levels of private debt, the government needs to run a deficit. If we don't want to further increase the federal debt, the central bank has to hand the cash over directly, without the issuance of debt through the treasury.

As for the independant central bank: you can only be independant from either the government or the private sector, not both. Actually, you can't even be truly independant from either, given that people are still involved, and people have ideologies and financial ties.

Still, if an "independant" central bank is what you prefer, Adair Turner's new book "Between Debt and the Devil" might be worth a read. He's a proponent of 100% reserve banking, and argues for the occasional use of the printing press -- though controlled by an inflation-targeting central bank. According to him, QE is pointless and in order to bring nominal demand up to the level we want, we should have a fiscal stimulus financed by central bank money. The central bank controls the amount, the government decides on what to spend it on.

Not how I would do it, but given his expertise as head of the Financial Services Authority, it's quite refreshing to hear these things from someone like him.

@radx @enoch @eric3579

For one thing, give the executive or legislative power over the printing press in a crisis and they will not willingly give that power up and end up abusing it. For another, if you're simply printing money to spend then you depreciate and inflate your currency commensurately, at least in the long term. Relying heavily on this is the kind of thing that Venezuela does. There's a reason that governments instead take on their fiscal spending as debt. On that I would say, I've also become much more skeptical of fiscal stimulus in general but particularly in corrections or recessions. I'm okay with automatic stabilizers (unemployment benefits, the largely limitless kind with strings attached we have here in Australia) but not so much direct fiscal stimulus.

The fundamental issue to me is large, even extremely large fiscal spending will not affect business confidence levels of economic conditions. There is some fiscal multiplier effects (the multiple of the effect on national income over the spending injection by the government) but the worse economic conditions are, the lower this will be. Also, yes with say infrastructure spending, you're creating immediate jobs. Problem is these are in no way permanent jobs and simply pushes the can down the road on them finding new employment. Better to provide unemployment benefits and training to get them into a more permanent job faster.

Also large bouts of spending (again to use infrastructure as an example) tends to be hugely wasteful. Good projects require appraisals, consultation and careful planning. The notion of handfuls of 'shovel ready' projects is a political myth. You can instead span it out but then you don't get the mooted fiscal boost. In fact I would argue infrastructure spending is never appropriate as fiscal stimulus. It should be in a constant, planned process of improvement irrespective of business cycles or downturns. The US stimulus under Obama was largely long term spending projects like this as giveaways to the states. There is little evidence it eased the recovery or altered behaviour though. Many states simply enacted the same civic projects they would have otherwise and used this money instead of issuing debt like they would have otherwise - effectively they saved on interest.

So what are the alternatives then? The government here in Australia also heavily spent on roads, home subsidies and schools but notably also gave all income earners a cash deposit of AUD $300-950. The latter is probably the closest you can get to a pure fiscal stimulus - immediately cash to spend, injected not into banks than might save it but given particularly to low / medium income earners most likely to spend it. Again what we saw is that it hardly altered consumer / household behaviour. Many saved it, many spent it on large one off purchases (e.g. TVs, in which case most of that value was transferred overseas). So we gave a dollop of cash as stimulus to the global economy of which Australia is a drop in the ocean. Basically my attitude is, if you maintain good infrastructure, effective education systems, adequate but efficient regulation, reasonable tax rates, and importantly competitive markets, the best way to get through a crisis is to let the market stabilize by itself. Provide assistance and retraining to workers who lose their jobs by all means, but don't expect government spending to be some kind of savior.

I agree on the inflation aspect of your post. There were certainly no shortage of self-declared monetarists buying up gold in anticipation of high inflation, but as you say dollops of cash in the economy are meaningless if they are idle and the economy under capacity. The question now with unemployment in the US at 5.5% whether capacity is finally pushing LRAS levels. Probably not, participation rate is low and falling, and the unemployment rate is woefully underrepresenting forced part timers. Also as you mention the dip in oil will temper prices on the input cost side. The Fed certainly seems to think so and has started tightening rates but as so much commentary in the investing world is saying, this may turn out to be a mistake and they may end up having to reverse course.

@radx

I think you misunderstand the Swiss referendum. It's about preventing banks from creating money through fractional lending, it doesn't restrict the central bank. Typically banks will take in deposits and lend a portion out (keeping a % as a capital buffer), that money then filters through the system and some of if returns as deposits, and the process repeats (hence the term fractional banking).

In effect banks are creating money through lending out more money than otherwise exists. It also means they lend out far in excess of the deposits they have, creating high leverage and meaning even a small level of default can lead to them eating through their capital and insolvency (see US in 2008). The referendum seems to be about effectively preventing fractional lending.

No idea what effect it would have in a country like Switzerland. The country is an exception as it has a relatively small economy but is seen globally as a safe haven currency meaning every time there is a crisis you see the CHF appreciate rapidly (similar to the USD). Naturally that tends to wreck havoc with the economy and exports since the currency value no longer reflects the real economy and is why the central bank has taken various measures to discourage it in the past.

Italy:
Renzi is creating the conditons for a new bubble? Through deficit spending on... what? Unless they start building highways in the middle of nowhere like they did in Spain, I don't see any form of bubble coming out of deficit spending in Italy. The country's been in a major recession for quite some time now, with no light at the end of the tunnel and a massive shortfall in private spending. But meaningful deficit spending requires Renzi to tell Germany and the Eurogroup to pound sand -- not sure his balls have descended far enough for that just yet.

Referendum in Switzerland:
"Vollgeld". That's the German term for what the initiators of this referendum are aiming for: 100% reserve banking. It's monetarism in disguise, and they are adament to not be called monetarists. But that's what it is. Pure old-fashioned monetarism. Even if you don't give a jar of cold piss about all these fancy economic terms and theories, let me ask you this: the currency you use is quite an important part of all your daily life, isn't it? So why would anyone in his or her right mind remove it entirely from democratic control (even constitutionally)?
If you want to get into the economic nightmares of it, here are a few bullet points:
- no Overt Monetary Financing (printing money for deficit spending) means no lender of last resort and complete dependence on the market, S&P can tell you to fuck off and die as they did with PIIGS
- notion that the "right amount of money in circulation" will enable the market to keep itself in balance -- as if that ever worked
- notion that a bunch of technocrats can empirically determine this very amount in regular intervalls
- central bank is supposed to maintain price stability, nothing else -- single mandate, works beautifully for the ECB, at least if you like 25% unemployment
- concept is founded in the notion that the financial economy is the source of (almost) all problems of the "real" economy, thereby completely ignoring the fact that decades of wage suppression have simply killed widescale purchasing power of the masses, aka demand

Visegrad nations:
From a German perspective, they are walking on thin ice as it is. The conflict with Russia never had much support of the public to begin with, but even the establishment is becoming more divided on this issue. Given the authoritarian policies put in place in Poland recently and the utter refusal to take in their share of refugees, support might fade even more. If the Visegrad governments then decide to push for further conflict with Russia, Brussels and Berlin might tell them, very discreetly, to pipe the fuck down.

Turkey:
Wildcard. He mentioned how they will mess with Syria, the Kurds and Russia, but forgot to mention the conflict between Turkey and the EU. As of now, it seems as if Brussels is ready to pay Ankara in hard cash if they keep refugees away from Greece. Very similar to the deal with Morocco vis-a-vis the Spanish enclave. As long as they die out of sight, all is good for Brussels.

I would add France as a point of interest:
They recently announced that the state of emergency will be extended until ISIS is beaten. In other words, it'll be permanent, just like the Patriot Act in the US. A lof of attention has been given to the authoritarian shift of politics in Poland, all the while ignoring the equally disturbing shift in France. Those emergency measures basically suspend the rule of law in favour of a covert police state. Add the economic situation (abysmal), the Socialist President who avoids socialist policies, and the still ongoing rise of Front National... well, you get the picture.

Regarding the EU, I'll say this: between the refugee crisis (border controls, domestic problems, etc) and the economic crisis, they finally managed to convince me that this whole thing might come apart at the seams after all. Not this year, though, even if the Brits decide to distance themselves from this rotten creation.

i love this guy.he is sooo pissed and is an absolute rage machine,but i was curious your take on this situation.
is this guy making valid points?
i know that an influx of 1 million refugees in a country with 60 million has to have changed the demographics of germany substantially,but since i am not there and naked ape does have a point in regards to media tap-dancing around the harsh realities.

so i would love your input on this dudes rage induced rant:
http://videosift.com/video/naked-ape-rages-against-the-syrian-refugee-crisis-in-germany

one of my favorite childhood movies. I would for them to do a sequel, with all of them obviously grownup, either stuck in dead-end jobs, or going through a mid-life crisis and going on a new adventure.

Yeah. San Francisco isn't that affected by earth tilt.

I forgot about the flip of the seasons.

Every year, I get giddy with joy on the first day of winter, because I KNOW THE DAYS ARE GETTING LONGER. I might not see the difference immediately, but I know we are "on the mend."

Conversely, I get a tad bit sad on the first day of summer. Because I know the days are beginning to get shorter. It isn't a Newtonian "equal and opposite reaction" -- after all, it is still light out at 9:45 pm the next day. There is a soupcon, an egg wash, a slight breeze of sadness knowing that we have reached our apex and are headed downhill.

But for you? First day of summer is just the first day of summer, at that latitude.

Scary temps down there. And here our short-sighted, bought-by-big-money-interests-polticians are fighting the reality of climate crisis even as you guys bake.

My apologies from my continent to yours.

I'm always astounded to see people who are unable to understand that this refugee crisis can't be solved by sending the refugees away. Have you people never seen a zombie movie? There are definitely similarities. They are coming and there's no way other than starting to shoot them in the head to stop this.
So, you wanna stand on any european border and kill random people (yes, random as in 'women and children too') to make sure the borders aren't crossed? Have you people never heard about East Germany? The had the most secure border on the entire planet. They had sniper towers and minefields. People died trying to cross it, they were murdered because of it. Still, some made it anyways. No border is impenetrable. Ever.

The refugees are coming. They'd rather die trying than not trying at all. They don't see any other choice.

Our only smart play is to exploit the advantages. We have people fleeing from ISIS that we can put in our mosques to stop recruiting and radicalisation. We have skilled laborers we need to identify and put to work accordingly. We have people willing to have and raise their kids here that can help us to solve our problems with a rapidly aging society.

It'll be difficult and it'll require us to change and redefine our cultural identity but if we do this right, we'll end up stronger in the future.

We can't afford the cowardice of racism much longer.

It's a shame Affleck didn't let the guy speak. This is something that needs to be talked about. That doesn't make anyone racist, and any right thinking Muslim would agree with that because we are ALL at risk.

However. There is currently the largest episode of human migration in history. The west is responsible for this with their destabilising campaigns in the middle east. Those places are breeding grounds for terrorism. Personal loss to the point of numbness towards violence and death, hunger, insecurity, fear, uncertainty... these things play directly into the hands of evil people looking to manipulate people to do their dirty deeds for them.

Our actions have led to this worldwide humanitarian crisis which has made us far more unsafe than before we began our poorly planned excursions into the region based on a knee-jerk, eye-for-an-eye reaction to a small number of individual thugs tragically murdering thousands of people. And haven't we just played into the hands of the extremists...

The indiscriminate bombing has to stop. This only ends diplomatically, but we are already at it again in Syria dropping bombs with no clear long term plan. We are fueling an already out of control humanitarian crisis and doing exactly what the terrorists need us to do for them to thrive.