Sent by reader CoRev Though he’d been on a mission all day and was about to drop, Mike Yon just called from Iraq to let me know that the war is over, and we’ve won. Whatever it is that is left of violence, there isn’t combat. Roughly half of the men in the unit of […]

by Robert Waldmann In my teens when I learned of the existence of credit rating agencies I wondered why private firms with such power weren’t corrupt. Why don’t firms pay bribes to obtain high credit ratings ? I still don’t know the answer but I think that the key is that the ratings are determined […]

This is a very important issue that should be discussed at all econ blogs. It has far reaching ramifications and frankly, I want to know why we did not hear more about the closing of the National Money Hole from president elect Obama. Nor was there one word coming from the Republican Governors Association meeting. […]

by rdan NaturalNews: A report by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission has concluded that prescription drugs have outstripped illegal drugs as a cause of death. An analysis of 168,900 autopsies conducted in Florida in 2007 found that three times as many people were killed by legal drugs as by cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines put […]

by Save the Rustbelt A Big 3 update What I Learned Over Morning Coffee in Michigan….. My original theory was this: 1) Big 3 file Chapter 11, 2) Big parts suppliers file and some shutdown Now I may have to revise this theory to: 1) Big parts suppliers collapse for lack of credit 2) Some […]

Everyone should read Joe Wilcox’s update, based on the release of more court docs, on the ongoing saga of Why Vista Sucked on Release. (Short version: because Intel asked.) Teaser quote, which would look fine in Mankiw or Krugman’s next Macro text: Based on the available information, I come to an easy conclusion: One monopoly […]

I hesitated to post this one, but since Charlie Stross agrees about the implications, the rest of the world better hope we’re wrong:

Warren Buffett: [Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.

by cactus Is Obama Starting Poorly? One of the things that worried me about Obama was that he (like McCain) supported the ridiculous bail-out bill. As I noted when it passed, it wasn’t going to work, and the net effect would be this: shady, undeserving characters will be enriched, young versions of the idiots who […]