by Ken Houghton It’s not been a Good Weekend for me to read Berkeley-based Economists. (Though DeLong is on fire, in a good way, and has been since that initial post.) Via Mark Thoma, this from Barry Eichengreen: In the United States, there were two key decisions. The first, in the 1970’s, deregulated commissions paid […]

by rdan Goldman, Morgan to Become Bank Holding Companies In one of the biggest changes to Wall Street in decades,Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the last two independentinvestment banks, will become bank holding companies, theFederal Reserve said Sunday night. RGE Monitor carries a lot of analysis such as it is. I am going to ask […]

Joe Klein reported in September: Following the lead of his buddy, and probable Secretary of the Treasury, Phil Gramm, McCain has been a vehement deregulator. Here is the deathless quote: “Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices […]

CNN does some he-said, she-said, but throws in some data: The administration’s proposal also requests that Congress authorize an increase to the nation’s debt ceiling. Currently, it’s set to rise to $10.6 trillion for fiscal year 2009 – which runs from October 2008 through September 2009. But the proposal requests that limit be increased to […]

Henry Paulson promises that he will spend the 700,000,000,000 of our dollars over which he wants total control wisely. I say he be required to put his money where his mouth is. Ask him how much he expects them to be worth after he has spent them on mortgage backed assets and tell him he […]

When calling Congresscritters tomorrow, especially for those in NY State, please feel free to remind Senator Schumer’s office that he and Barack Obama were the two people [in contested elections] who finished with the widest margin of victory in 20062004 [h/t to my Loyal Reader and Kohole in comments]—about a 50% margin in both cases. […]

Via The Good Roger Ailes, ABC News reports that rape kits aren’t the only thing Sarah Palin tried to leave the responsibility of the victim: Fighting back against allegations she may have fired her then-Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monegan, for refusing to go along with a personal vendetta, Palin on Monday argued in a legal […]

There are three reasons that the give Paulson $700,000,000,000 to play with plan might save world finance 1) the value of a pool of all the mortgage based assets is easier to determine than the value of particular assets — making a huge pool of all the toxic sludge will cause it to melt, that […]

We already gave them $900 Billion. (Or, as I would prefer to write it, just so everyone understands: $900,000,000,000. About 3,000 a person, or 26.7% of the annual median household income, assuming a family of four.) What would makes anyone think another $700,000,000,000 will solve the problem? Just because “sooner or later, you’re talking about […]

At a high level, Floyd Norris explains it all to you. UDATED, AND PULLED TO THE FORE: For the more detailed view (h/t Barry R.), the soon to be late, not very lamented, New York Sun presents the details: The SEC allowed five firms — the three that have collapsed plus Goldman Sachs and Morgan […]