Robert Waldmann Is Jim Puzzangera of the Los Angeles Times insinuating what I think he’s insinuating ? Before Washington Mutual collapsed … its executives knowingly created “a mortgage time bomb” by steering borrowers to subprime mortgages and turning the loans into securities the company knew were likely to go bad…“At times, WaMu selected and securitized […]

Robert Waldmann Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein come very close to accusing Alec Litowitz of the Magnetar hedge fund of being a financial arsonist. I have been speculating about financial arson for a year and a half now. The hypothesis is that Magnetar deliberately set up especially low quality CDOs and bought CDS insurance on […]

Robert Waldmann Some time ago, I noted the difference between the provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) which reduces the scheduled generosity of payments to hospitals, nursing homes and home health care agencies and the formula in a 1997 bill which was supposed to reduce the generosity of payments to doctors and which is […]

Robert Waldmann is still trying to get Paul Krugman to read my answer to his question. Krugman explaines the neo-Austrian view of the business cycle and unemployment during recessions and asks “why isn’t there similar unemployment during the boom, as workers are transferred into investment goods production?” I answer (in comments and here) I think […]

reads Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias (between the two of them they have more years than I do). Klein thinks the FDIC works well. Yglesias notes that it keeps eating banks every Friday and has doubts about the quality of its prudential regulation. I will argue that the FDIC has more of an incentive to […]

Robert Waldmann told Paul Krugman so About 21 months ago Paul Krugman had a question lower and middle-income Americans would be substantially better off under the Obama plan. But where is the money for health care reform? I proposed an answer there are two puzzles in Obama’s proposals1) How does he plan to pay for […]

Robert Waldmann Was just talking to his mom and dad (Dr Waldmann and Dr Waldmann). They had CNN on. I couldn’t see my screen from where I was talking on the phone, so I heard from Dr Waldmann (Thomas) that Stupak had said yes and that someone who is very pro-choice said she had no […]

Robert Waldmann Yves Smith discusses how investment bankers get their sense of entitlement. Just read it.

Robert Waldmann A punk staffer is a staffer who laughs when you say “A repo man spends his life getting into tense situations.” John Boehner makes it clear. He agrees with Senator Durbin that, frankly, bankers own that place. However, he thinks that’s the way it should be. Why the constitution says right in article […]

Robert Waldmann Let me join Brad DeLong in Saying Let Me Join Pete Davis in Saying: “Thank You Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky”Pete Davis expresses the sentiment very well: Thank You Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky: I’ve always wanted to thank Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky (D-PA) for her courageous deciding vote for President Clinton’s 1993 deficit reduction bill. Her Republican colleagues jeered her […]