I was planning on writing an omnibus mega-post on the Obama budget, but instead I think I’ll parcel it out over several posts. There’s a lot of ground to cover and I don’t want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Through the transition and stimulus fight, the one concern I had about [...]
Not to burst harveyj’s bubble, but the state of our economy is not getting better. Karl Denninger, who has been consistently right, has an excellent (if scary) analysis of where we are along with a set of predictions for 2009. Time to start laying in emergency rations and stockpiling bullets.
Representative Brad Miller takes issue with the “Mexican strawberry picker making $14,000 getting a $750,000 loan” story, comparing it as a symbol to Reagan’s welfare queens. This anecdote, if true, should actually be promoted by advocates of reform. The dynamics of power between “housing boom-era bank” and “$14k/year agricultural worker” are indisputable. I really [...]
Wherever you are, stop and read this absolutely stunning article by Michael Lewis (a hero of mine) on the subprime mortgage crisis. The entire thing just leaves me speechless. Money quotes:
He called Standard & Poor’s and asked what would happen to default rates if real estate prices fell. The man at S&P couldn’t say; its [...]
The global warming debate and the various financial bailouts before Congress actually have a lot in common in terms of legislative strategy. In both cases, you have Serious People, experts in their fields, issuing warnings that seem amazingly dire to those of us that are fat, happy, and accustomed to the past two decades of [...]
But you can throw them pretty high up there, if you really try. That’s what we’re seeing today in the stock market. If you were watching last week, which I’m sure you weren’t, bad new kept coming out but the market just kept going up. The bulls out there want to take [...]
…is not an indicator of future returns. At least, that’s what they always seem to say. Despite the saying, any decent chartist worth his salt will tell you that it is simply not true; the markets move in complex but discernible patterns. I won’t go into details here, but I want to address [...]
President-Elect Obama (awesome!) laid out more specifics about his plans for economic stimulus in his weekly radio address today. The deep recession we’re entering into is horrible for the country, and most people assume that it will be horrible for Obama, as it will limit his options, and provide ammo to deficit hawks. There is [...]