by Bruce Webb Michael Lind wrote an interesting article for Salon that was picked up by the New America Foundation under the snappy title Let’s Cut Social Security to Pay for Banker Bailouts!. In it he outlines arguments that will be familiar to followers of Angry Bear’s Social Security coverage, notably pointing out the ‘message’ […]
by Bruce Webb Over the next couple of days I’ll be rolling out what I am tentatively calling the Northwest Plan for Fixing Social Security, ‘Northwest’ because the three current contributers happen to live in the Pacific Northwest. But before doing so I want to lay out some of the conceptual differences underlying various discussions […]
rdan NYT shouts out about Wagoner and GM. Chrysler must merge with Fiat? Wagoner needed to go in my opinion, but so do some of the bankers. When is that to happen? Perhaps Simon Johnson is more correct in his estimation of a captured financial/government combination than is discussed in detail to date. Here is […]
Robert Waldmann People are talking about regulating credit default swaps (CDS) . They include Collin Petersen D-Minn who proposes making it illegal to own a CDS without owning the underlying instrument (this is absolutely standard for other kinds of insurance). and George Soros who supports the proposal.(via Felix Salmon) A problem, I think, is that […]
There has been a great deal of recent discussion insisting that the various New Deal programs did not get this country out of the Depression, only World War II did that. And no one that I know of argues that the level of unemployment right through the 30’s was not unacceptably high. But I want […]
rdan Exclusive report Bloomberg continues the quest for information on US lending of $2 Trillion. The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under […]
rdan The Detroit Free Press carries this statement: “The UAW is deeply disappointed that Senate Republicans have blocked the bipartisan legislation that was agreed to by President Bush and congressional Democrats. “In an effort to work out a compromise, the UAW was prepared to agree that any restructuring plan should ensure that the wages and […]
rdan hat tip vtcodger, who adds “All the focus on cars is on the Big Three whose CEOs will lay out their begging mats in Washington today. But imports aren’t doing so great either.” But these are not ordinary times. (NYT) For now, the port itself is the destination. Unwelcome by dealers and buyers, thousands […]
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 […]
by Robert Waldmann My post on “what the hell are credit default swaps for” got lots of comments and I learned a lot from the comment thread. I continue my effort at remedial education via blogging. First a very simple article by Martin HutchisonDoes this guy know what he is writing about ? Key quote […]