Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Can We Stop Pretending Nationalisation is a Bad Idea? The WSJ has.

I’ve spent most of the past two weeks alternating between dizziness and sleep. Maybe the dizziness explains why I find myself in agreement with a WSJ editorial: In a better world, Citi would have long ago been put into bankruptcy. The FDIC could have taken over and disposed of the bank’s assets, while protecting insured […]

Assume They Know What an Acronym Is

I am reliably informed (though I cannot find it on the web) that Forbes yesterday and MSNBC today are both referring to the next kleptocratic maneuverbank bailout bill as the Bank Asset Recovery Fund. Anyone got the links? UPDATE: Forbes link added. UPDATE II: The consensus in comments appears to be that a Meredith Whitney […]

Simple Answer to a Simple Question

Dr. Black graciously asks: Am I the only to whom it’s occurred that monetary policy through the banking channel (as opposed to, say, actually dropping money from helicopters) is only likely to be effective if banks are pretty good at allocating capital efficiently, and recent history tells us that the existing set of clowns in […]

English translation, or Kleptocracy Defined

Via CR, the Fed announcement this morning: The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday announced the creation of the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), a facility that will help market participants meet the credit needs of households and small businesses by supporting the issuance of asset-backed securities (ABS) collateralized by student loans, auto loans, credit […]

Class War; Appropriateness of the Wealthy’s strategy

A research review by: Divorced one like Bush Introduction: This review was initiated after reading the report linked at the 25 indicators post. A review of the data regarding accepted economic performance indicators for business cycle peaks of year 2000 and 2008 is presented along with a discussion of the relevance to the strategy of […]