sort of an op-ed by rdan I have noticed from Yves Smith that the Baltic Dry Index is tanking*, and that letters of credit cost 3-4% to establish instead of the lower 1% or so. Trade has relied on ‘letters of credit’ to keep goods flowing. Correspondingly ‘sovereign bartering’ between governments is increasing as pricing […]
Sometimes, Blog Posts Write Themselves: Cleaning up a hard drive of old files, I ran across these two articles from the middle of last year. First, the WSJ, arbiter of business sanity and purveyor of a positive meme whenever one is to be found, on 28 July 2007—nine months after the general supply of securitizable […]
by reader OSO Summary: The two best examples of neoliberalism working are Australia and NewZealand. These two nations (of which I am a citizen of one) enactedmajor economic reforms in the early 1980s and have benefited since. The Washington Consensus, despite being out of fashion these days, is ablueprint that both Australia and New Zealand […]
by cactus Questions About the Big 3, and Legacy Costs I keep hearing that the Big 3’s Problem is that it has all these legacy union retirees who are expensive as all heck to maintain and add tremendously to the cost of manufacturing cars. That raises a few questions: 1. How many years will it […]
Up to date coverage on Auto News can be found at WXYZ.com. Update: Link fixed. Update 2: Union contracts linked in comments, hat tip MG.
Look no further than some of the brain-dead idiocy suggested as part of this NY Times poll of economists. Saddest quote of the day is from Andrew Samwick, who decided to be stupid the day the U.S. elected a non-Republican president: “If I had my druthers, the word ’stimulus’ would be expunged from public discussion, […]
Ken Houghton Pulled from comments (to the Librarian post at Eschaton): [W]ithout economic knowledge, DFHs don’t understand why the bailout of banks so that they would keep credit flowing is critical, while the bailout of the auto industry caused by the fact that the banks spent the money on acquisitions and executive pay instead of […]
Robert Waldmann gives advice to libertarians, free market fanatics and Republicans on how to blame the financial crisis on government regulation. Quite frankly, their efforts so far have been pathetic — Let’s pretend that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lead the way in sub-prime mortgages which were orginally defined as mortgages that they wouldn’t touch. […]
by Bruce Webb(h/t to Hilzoy commenter nortzax for the idea) I mean it is bad enough that failure of the Big 3 means the loss of maybe 3 million jobs. Why are you trying to put Dale Earnhardt Jr. out of a job? Seriously what would the economic impact be to red states if not […]
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 […]