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Category Archives: Economics

Let me expand and revise my remarks

Monday, November 10, 2008

In my last post I mentioned that the government is giving trillions to the banks, some of it illegal. I was making reference to two things. First, the treasury has created a host of bailout programs outside of the $700 Billion Congressional giveaway. More egregiously, the Treasury Department has decided that it has the power […]

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Where should we spend our borrowed money?

Monday, November 10, 2008

Obama is being pulled in a number of directions. According to the Boston Globe, the Defense Business Board, a government board stocked with business minded civilians, he should cut spending at the Pentagon. This would, by the way, be bad news for Joe Courtney, because according to the Board, submarines are among the wasteful military […]

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Who could have known, take 217

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Via Calculated Risk, from the Wall Street Journal, Alan Greenspan confesses error: The panel chairman, Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) criticized Mr. Greenspan’s approach to mortgage regulation while he was Fed chairman. The Fed “had the authority to stop the irresponsible lending practices that fueled the subprime mortgage market,” Waxman said, but Mr. Greenspan “rejected pleas […]

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Who needs more than one bank?

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Once again I venture to comment on an economics issue. Beware. In today’s Times we learn that Henry Paulson will be using some of our money (well, lots of our money) to facilitate bank mergers. (U.S. Is Said to Be Urging New Mergers in Banking) While I understand that some banks are in bad shape, […]

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Rewards for good work

Saturday, October 18, 2008

This morning I told my wife I was sure that the Wall Streeters would be pulling down big bonuses this year, despite the fact that, objectively speaking, they’re performance has not been, shall we say, all that great. Via Americablog, I see that I was right, but that particular prediction was like shooting fish in […]

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Krugman wins Nobel

Monday, October 13, 2008

If you did a search for the word “Krugman” on this blog you’d find multiple instances. He obviously knows of what he speaks, and he’s been right almost all the time. Now he’s won the Nobel Prize in Economics. It is to be hoped that a President Obama would tap him for advice.

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Who could have known that the SEC would roll over for Wall Street

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Just finished watching Joe Courtney and waiting for Obama. Just time to note this article (Impartiality of S.E.C. Is Questioned). The article relates the story of an SEC investigator who was fired for being too aggressive in an investigation he was conducting. The inspector general has concluded, per usual, that there was misconduct involved in […]

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Breathtaking

Monday, October 6, 2008

According to the New York Times (Lehman Managers Portrayed as Irresponsible) Lehman executives were looting the company just days before it went belly up: One Lehman document among thousands reviewed by the House committee showed that four days before the bank filed for bankruptcy protection, Lehman’s compensation committee was asked to grant $20 million in […]

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Bailout bill gets worse

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Some interesting comments on the bailout from Dean Baker: While all right-thinking people might know we need the bailout, just about all right-thinking people don’t have a clue as to what they are talking about. The Great Depression story is of course the most extreme case. No one has yet sketched out the sequence of […]

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Brilliant

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Who could have known? From this morning’s Times: “The last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work,” [SEC Chairman Cox} said in a statement. The program “was fundamentally flawed from the beginning, because investment banks could opt in or out of supervision voluntarily. The fact that investment bank holding […]

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