Remember that plan of Patrick Ruffini’s, that McCain should run against whatever plan is developed: For McCain and other Republicans, voting “no” on Paulson without accepting the consequences of that vote is the political equivalent of a bottomless crack pipe: it will please the conservative “base,” distance them from both Bush and “Washington,” and let […]
Take a page from Douglas North et al., I will simply note that if the institutions charged with managing the process are corrupt, the chance of success approaches zero. Case in point, Christopher Cox (R-BoughtAndPaid) and the SEC: The interesting thing here is that we have already heard that the S.E.C. staff almost immediately demanded […]
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, […]
by Ken Houghton I had the same reaction to his “we have to do something” comments on Sunday as Dr. Black. But we both, clearly, forgot the game that was being played. Monday is a day of work, and Dodd has clearly prepared well: Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.Sec. 2. Authority to purchase […]
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. […]
We already gave them $900 Billion. (Or, as I would prefer to write it, just so everyone understands: $900,000,000,000. About 3,000 a person, or 26.7% of the annual median household income, assuming a family of four.) What would makes anyone think another $700,000,000,000 will solve the problem? Just because “sooner or later, you’re talking about […]
I believe that’s the English translation of this headline.
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 […]