Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

NYT asks when will it end?

By divorced one like Bush Via C & L via CR comes the NYT asking when will the recession be over. They have 11different responses. Roubini is there suggesting we could see an L curve. We now face a 1 in 3 chance that, if appropriate policies are not put in place, this ugly U-shaped […]

Still KISSING income inequality

by divorced one like Bush Let’s talk jazz: Still cashing the income inequalityberries, clams, dough, heavy sugar, jack, kale, mazuma, rubes, simoelan, voot. It’s all money. I started this series to develop a simple model of income inequality so that I wouldn’t sound like I was chewing gum and people wouldn’t get all balled up […]

Unemployed Populace Threatening to Break the Cell Size

Unemployed persons (seasonally adjusted) appears to be approaching 10,000,000. The other interesting thing about the table is that December 2007 now looks as if it was much worse than was reported at the time: another piece of data that might indicate that we have been in a recession since Q4 2007.

A Quick One: Inflationary Credit Recession Strategies

Tom’s doing some heavy lifting, PGL is in form, Bruce has started SocSec 101, and the entire economics blogsphere is having so many conniptions over Hillary that you’d think the CEA was actually the Shadow Government. So I just want start easy, and take a look at three easy-to-compare data points:First, the Federal Funds target […]

The Longest Recession Ever!

The other day Spencer posted a chart that Cactus had sent and then Cactus posted the link to the data. After looking at the data, and considering the question being asked: Are we seeing a recession? I thought, maybe looking at just median weeks of unemployment or number of unemployed is not going to capture […]

Bail or re-sell after the bums are kicked out?

NYT sells bailout story with no alternatives: “You get to where people can’t trade with each other,” said James L. Melcher, president of Balestra Capital, a hedge fund based in New York. “If the Fed hadn’t acted this morning and Bear did default on its obligations, then that could have triggered a very widespread panic […]

Has it begun?

The NYT reports on the Fed, Bears Stearns valuation, and interventions. The Fed, working closely with bank regulators and the Treasury Department, raced to complete the deal Sunday night in order to prevent investors from panicking on Monday about the ability of Bear Stearns to make good on billions of dollars in trading commitments. In […]

Where DID the money go? Part 2

Bloomberg Magazine, in “Unsafe Havens”. (Hat tip to Naked Capitalism.) reports that money market funds run by Bank of America Corp., Credit Suisse Group, Fidelity Investments and Morgan Stanley owned over $6 billion of CDOs with subprime debt in June. The reason this is a serious issue is that money market funds have a $1 […]

Housing and Recession

My thoughts are with the residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast tonight. This week two prominent economists predicted a housing bust and possible recession in ’06; three if you count Chairman Greenspan. Actually Greenspan’s comments, made at the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole Conference, were not predictions, but general observations. Quoting from Greenspan’s closing […]