rdan The U.S. Navy says pirates seized a Saudi-owned supertanker loaded with crude hundreds of miles off the Horn of Africa. The vessel, which has a 25-member crew, is the largest ever hijacked by bandits. What does one do with such a catch? 1. Hold the crew hostage, similar to a hijacked jet?2. The oil […]

rdan Reader Bear points us to a great essay by Michael Lewis in Condi Naste Portfolio.com: In the two decades since then, I had been waiting for the end of Wall Street. The outrageous bonuses, the slender returns to shareholders, the never-ending scandals, the bursting of the internet bubble, the crisis following the collapse of […]

While I’m trying to decide whether unmanaged funds are preferrable to mismanaged ones, and wondering whether any discussion of Mark Cuban (I like the picture better than CNN’s) belong here,* the NYT decides to continue its determined destruction of its reputation. Stanley Fish manages to forget—or, more accurately, ignore, since he mentions it in the […]

By Spencer Brad DeLong said that Krugman eviscerated George F. Will on the level of capital spending during the Great Depression. Delong said:I have never been able to make any sense at all of the right-wing claim that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression by creating a “crisis of confidence” that crippled private investment […]

By: Divorced one like Bush I was wondering why Mr. Spitzer had not been heard from? Was his personal indiscretion so great that his knowledge and expertise would not trump such? He has an opinion at the Washington Post yesterday. The new president’s team must soon get to the root causes of the mistakes that […]

by Robert Waldmann (stolen wholesale from his website by someone) Media Matters by Jamison Foser Foser has a devastating critique of, well the interpretation of a PEJ study. He says that the press (Howard Kurtz of course) has accepted the claim that coverage was biased in favor of Obama, based on the clear liberal bias […]

Op ed by reader GregLifted from comments cactus style Recovery vehicle? Who knows. I know this, whatever it is won’t work. This systemic failure was baked into the cake years ago. It was unsustainable form the start. The only question was how long will it last. I laughed out loud yesterday when I heard an […]

Via Dr. Black, the NYT quotes the Alabama Senator: “Companies fail every day and others take their place. I think this is a road we should not go down,” said Mr. Shelby, the senior Republican on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. “They’re not building the right products,” he said. “They’ve got good […]

by reader coberly DANCING AROUND ON ONE NAIL Here is why we never get anywhere: Try to ignore the “substance” (such as it is) and follow the logic. It is from a recent thread; names have been omitted in an imperfect attempt to concentrate on the logic and not personalities. BEGIN THREADA: You say, “Nationalize […]

Change.gov is the website set up for President-elect Obama to offer up weekly videotaped ‘address the nation’ style communications. Courtesy of Mudflats, which has been another interesting phenomenon of the internet for community building and sources of information worldwide. The first is of course on the economy.