October 06, 2008
I finally got around to listening to the episode of This American Life about subprime mortgages that natedogg mentioned 2 weeks ago when I heard that the same team was doing another episode about the whole economic bailout plan. If, like me, you learned a lot from the first one, you'll probably want to listen to this new one as well.
They talked a little about the SEC chairman Christopher Cox in another episode from a few weeks ago if you are interested.
More technical, broader.
If you want to hear some disturbingly monochromatic dittohead vitriol, google news for 'ACORN CRA'. When I did so a few days ago, it was almost entirely wingnut -- now there are a few reaction pieces diluting the sewage. Disturbing on several, well every, count.
... the latter from here -- can't peg the crank index on this one, though it jibes with other reports.
And I'm calling shenanigans on the first two. The ones I trust -- Krugman, Marginal Revolution, Brad DeLong, Freakonomics' friends -- are all saying nobody knows where the sky is and whether it's falling, rather than that it is falling.
Meanwhile, to head the 700 G$ bailout former Goldman Sachs exec Henry Paulson has just named 35-year old Neel Kashkari. A name disturbingly aptonymical to "Kneel, Cash and Carry" -- Here's hoping he's more Theo Epstein and less Michael "Heckuvajob" Brownie.
An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education compares the current situation to "The REAL Great Depression" of 1873.
Lehman Bros CEO gets stole on.
I wonder if Chris Tucker stood over him letting him know he just got knocked the fuck out.
The bull has needs!
The only good thing to come out of this crisis: Fake HenryPaulson
This article from the WSJ provides and interesting counterpoint to the concept that it's better to recapitalize the banks directly instead of the original plan of just buying the toxic assets.
If I read that right she's saying both plans are fucked up. I get the sense that economists a) agree that both plans are fucked up, b) agree that we are in uncharted territory, and c) that plan B (recapitalize banks) is less fucked up than plan A (buy toxic assets at market value & renegotiate the composite mortgages, thereby rewarding the least worthy and giving up hope of ever seeing that money again.)
Agreed that the banks that should fail need to fail -- but buying the assets doesn't solve that problem; we could siphon off all the dreck from the shakiest and then watch weak and strong fail together.
Just watched that vid habcous linkied and it is awesome -- it's part of a whole series, all worth a gander.
I'm sure with anything like this, you can find someone who was predicting it. And there's always the broken clock/twice-a-day argument. But still, something about the derision that the guy correctly predicting the crisis was getting in these videos is pretty interesting in retrospect.
Wow, the extreme derision the other talking heads show is just so over the top. No one wants you to harsh their buzz, do they?
Hey, let's look at how foreclosures are doing. Not that great, you say?
I recently came across another well put together video about the whole credit crisis thing. And there's been another This American Life episode put together by the Planet Money people about banks and how they screwed things up. Also, there was a Wired article about the guy whose equation was used to justify all these crazy financial products.
This American Life now has a page that collects all their episodes relating to the economy, most or all of them done with the people from Planet Money.
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This is the clearest writeup I've seen: part 1, part 2. Clearly grounds most of the factors involved, though its conclusion is significantly more optimistic than almost every other economist's.
posted by mrflip at 02:40AM CST on October 06