Back in the Good Old Days, Leveraged Buyouts (LBOs) all the rage. Not coincidentally, the phrase “underfunded pension liabilities” moved into the mainstream. Long story short: when legislation is finally passed to make the “underfunded” portion a thing of the past (you can stop laughing any time), several large companies run by Captains of Industry—think […]
Thursday morning editorial: The voters may be full of hope about the looming Obama Presidency, but so far investors aren’t. No President-elect in the postwar era has been greeted with a more audible hiss from Wall Street. The Dow has lost 1,342 points, or about 14%, since the election, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq […]
Or does he know better? This year’s election coincided with an important moment in the financial crisis. The credit markets have stabilized in the last few weeks and even improved a bit. But the rest of the economy is deteriorating fairly rapidly. It’s now in danger of falling into a vicious spiral, in which spending […]
And sometimes it would be better if it stayed that way. Remember, Real Business Cycle is when you look back at the Perfect Storm and note how calm the water is now. Yes, I know. prize in honor of and all that.
by Ken Houghton I don’t believe David Leonhardt is an idiot, but that’s not based on the evidence at hand: There are really only two [questions]: What steps are most likely to solve the immediate crisis? And how can the long-term cost to taxpayers be minimized? Everything else — reducing executive pay on Wall Street, […]
CNN does some he-said, she-said, but throws in some data: The administration’s proposal also requests that Congress authorize an increase to the nation’s debt ceiling. Currently, it’s set to rise to $10.6 trillion for fiscal year 2009 – which runs from October 2008 through September 2009. But the proposal requests that limit be increased to […]
When calling Congresscritters tomorrow, especially for those in NY State, please feel free to remind Senator Schumer’s office that he and Barack Obama were the two people [in contested elections] who finished with the widest margin of victory in 20062004 [h/t to my Loyal Reader and Kohole in comments]—about a 50% margin in both cases. […]
UPDATE: Krugman comes to the same conclusions, more concisely. (That’s why he gets paid the big bucks.) And Brad DeLong has modified his original position to the point where it’s got a good chance of working going forward. I started a “What is an Asset” post yesterday, which got sidetracked by Brad DeLong’s urging that […]
Ladies and gentlemen, Tyler (“So Right It Hurts“) Cowen presents the following, er, argument: Excessive bank regulation is another danger. To be sure, the regulatory structure for financial institutions failed in the current crisis, and change is in order. But we shouldn’t reform in a way that will discourage bank lending and weaken the tie […]
Yves Smith quotes Thomas Friedman accidentally telling the truth: Since President Bush came to office, our national savings have gone from 6 percent of gross domestic product to 1 percent, and consumer debt has climbed from $8 trillion to $14 trillion. Please explain this in the context of the “savings and investment boost” that was […]