Henry Paulson’s book On the Brink is getting pilloried all over the place. David Wessel raises a point I’ve been hammering for a while: Jeff Imment, CEO of General Electric, frightened Paulson in early September by calling to say GE, which Paulson describes as “an American business icon,” was having trouble borrowing money by selling […]
Robert Waldmann Barry Ritholtz argues that the problem with mortgages was underwriting standards and not securitization. He appeals to the very great authority of Monty Python. Click the link. Ritholtz seems not to be familiar with this new idea in economic theory called “Nash equilibrium”. Over -rated yes. Totally irrelevant not so much. One can […]
Floyd Norris cites John C. Dugan, the man whose agency was charged with regulating AIG Financial Products in the NYT: [T]hey believe that the banking system on its own is unlikely to have the ability to provide enough credit to sustain an economic recovery in the United States. Gosh, really? Norris quotes Dugan: “We need […]
I lifted these comments by rl love concerning a way to look at our current discussion about jobs from Linda Beale’s post on Tax Foundation analysis: Rl love writes on the nature of trade for the US: Stiglitz: ” … the export of T-bills is different from the export of cars or computers or almost […]
reader sammy submits this question: Population Density and Ideology Sammy compared the famous Red/Blue electoral map (by county) with a map of Population Density and found pretty strong correlation. Areas with high population density vote Democratic, while areas with low population density vote Republican. What, if anything, explains this correlation? Sammy’s theory is: 1) People […]
I have some topical threads for Sat. and Sun. but not tonight. Two are poke in the eye sort of topics.
FINS from the Wall Street Journal names Linda Beale and ataxingmatter in Top Five: Sharp analysis and blunt delivery make this academic take on taxes work. The blogger Linda Beale writes entries that don’t shy away from tearing down or giving props to fellow tax bloggers. It is no wonder that Beale, as a law […]
Even during the last “jobless recovery,” people did not continue to become discouraged. Things have changed.
by Bruce Webb Would that have been a fair headline for the following story: Richard Shelby Puts Hold On President Obama’s Nomineesl? Because the facts are pretty clear, Shelby placed these holds mainly because of concerns over as Politico delicately puts it “Pentagon’s bidding process for air-to-air refueling tankers”. We can put that a little […]
While I applaud the cautious optimism of Spencer and Tom, I’m more inclined to quote Joseph Brusuelas: [T]he January payrolls added a dollop of Zen like logic to a recovery that is shaping up like no other. An additional 111,000 workers entered the labor force, yet the unemployment rate fell to 9.7% while private sector […]