The WSJ and the Commerce Department realize what everyone else already knew. The recession was deeper — and subsequent recovery slower — than the government originally estimated, the Commerce Department said Friday.

As Brad DeLong has noted, Tim Geithner believes it is time for “the economy has now recovered sufficiently for government to begin to make way for private business investment.”  In short, he expects “the private sector” to do the heavy lifting in these joyous times of economic recovery. Cynics among us—why, yes, that might well […]

Sometimes, I hate being right. Most of those times are when I take a pessimistic view of data; this has happened a lot recently. It gets worse when the people who agree with you are none other than The Giant Vampire Squid. As the Wall Street Journal notes: Zero — First quarter GDP growth, minus […]

When you need to understand something, look to the comics for the best explainations. And a this sketch on the subprime problem.

Consider this just another Rorschach test and discuss in comments as you will.

by cactus Last week I wrote A Simple Explanation of How The Use of Derivatives Created The Great Recession. I want to clarify things with an analogy that at first glance may seem unrelated. Let’s talk about poker. Its a game that seems to have grown in popularity in the last decade, especially with the […]