I made a few claims, it’s fair to see how I’m doing: 1) – This is not a market collapse, in the sense of a price drop in the stock market. It is an institutional collapse because of a price drop. In other words, as long as housing prices, avarice, and economic growth propped up […]
That’s about it. It’s never going make justice and equality, nor will it necessarily avert financial melt-down. But without it, there’s a real chance that there will be spill-over to the real economy. In April, I wrote about a system collapse, and while I still don’t think it would be Armageddon, I do think that […]
I passed this along to a colleague, but I wanted to put it in one place. When I want to read about what’s what in econ&finance (as opposed to orgs, culture, and sociology), I tend to go to these places: Infectious Greed is Paul Kedrosky’s blog on tech+finance, and good about directing stuff. Dani Rodrik, […]
Well, he is the chief conductor and artistic director of the orchestra of the National Theater in Brazilia, Brazil. He can also whack the hell out of a piano.
At the onset and height of financial crisis, Damien Hirst has done something interesting. There is a series of Times articles (thanks Carol Vogel for doing the heavy lifting) about the anticipation towards, and outcomes from, Hirst’s “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” sale at Sotheby’s London. The sale was significant for a few reasons. First, […]
I feel like I should just continue to channel Paul Kedrosky: I pity taxpayers wandering into the credit crisis story at this point. It is absurdly complex, and centers on a subject that most people neither care about nor understand. And the last time they looked in they were told this was about subprime and […]
From D-squared’s one-minute MBA, useful for “avoiding projects pursued by morons”, still a classic and worth heeding today: 1) Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance. 2) Fibbers’ forecasts are worthless. 3) The Vital Importance of Audit. If the bailout doesn’t meet these criteria, expect […]
I suppose a long post that explains WTF is warranted (I’d point to Daniel’s post as a good one), but in the meantime, two other things are buzzing more to the front of my mind. The first is the batshit crazy assessment by Henry Paulson in his testimony today that: We must now take further, […]
What a surprise that the initial market direction is up (I’ll wait and see if it lasts). The fed suspends short-selling and infuses banks with money! It is not unprecedented, I think, in that the federal government has rationed food, suspended futures markets on all kinds of agricultural commodities, and otherwise intervened pretty directly in […]
If you don’t read Infectious Greed, well, you ought to. I agree with him here: Second, this has nothing to do with naked short-selling. Repeat after me: The trouble is not with short-sellers. The trouble is not with short-sellers. The trouble is with an over-levered financial system built on a house of cards comprised of […]