Vegetable oil tested on NZ flight BBC Fannie, Freddie, Bear & Hard Times: Wall Street’s Collapse, Told in Rhymes Wall Street Journal Falling House Prices: It’s Worse Than It Looks Dean Baker The Scariest Housing-Related Chart Ever Mr. Mortgage Is Buying Bonds Really a Good Idea? Felix Salmon A Renter’s Market for Manhattan Offices New […]
Read more...We have worried out loud that the policy remedies being pursued by the US amount to trying to restore the status quo ante to as great a degree as possible, particularly in trying to resturn US overconsumption to something approaching its former levels. Although it may be difficult to work two agendas, crisis response and […]
Read more...Wellie, the incumbents are not yet out of office, yet the Bush Administration blame shifting spin doctoring is already in high gear. Henry Paulson gave an interview to the Financial Times that appears either to have been remarkably brief (even the 10 minute Bloomberg videos typically yield more quotable material) or Paulson has gotten very […]
Read more...Dwight Cass at BreakingViews makes some astute and troubling observations about the GMAC rescue, which spurred a market rally in the face of truly awful economic releases (one might take the cynical view that, given how thin trading is this week and the tape-painted appearance of the end-of-day recovery in stocks yesterday, that a rally […]
Read more...Coral springs back from tsunami BBC One World, Many Minds: Intelligence in the Animal Kingdom Scientific American Disagreeing With Martin Feldstein on Defense Spending Stan Collander (hat tip Mark Thoma). A paragraph-by-paragraph refutation of a WSJ op-ed that argued for even more DoD feeding at the trough. Hedgies Still Hearing “Redemption Song” Joshua Brown Community […]
Read more...A useful piece at the Wall Street Journal discusses the poor prospects for the US banking industry, which will in aggregate post a fourth quarter loss despite heroic interventions by the Fed and Treasury. The article makes much of recent and almost-certain-to-get-worse bank credit losses as the economy continues to deteriorate. Commercial real estate vacancies, […]
Read more...Wolfgang Munchau has a good piece in todays’ Financial Times delineating his economic policy wish list for 2009. It has the merit of being to the point and pragmatic. His preamble contains some some striking tidbits. Munchau considers himself relatively optimistic about US housing, despite anticipating a 40 to 50% peak to trough decline, and […]
Read more...Storing the Breeze: New Battery Might Make Wind Power More Reliable Scientific American An Eye For An Eye Makes The Whole World Blind Hizoy Fifty Herbert Hoovers Paul Krugman, New York Times Deficit or Depression? Robert Kuttner, Huffington Post. Some good ideas on how to achieve fiscal stimulus quickly. MIght be worth noting if ideas […]
Read more...There is a piece I regard as truly odd in the Wall Street Journal tonight. Either much of what I have read about investment bank bankruptcies is wrong, or something peculiar is at what used to be the house of Lehman. A Wall Street Journal article, “Lehman’s Chaotic Bankruptcy Filing Destroyed Billions in Value,” comments […]
Read more...There has been some discussion of the possibility of buyer revulsion eventually reaching the Treasury market as a burgeoning calendar bumps up against demand. But a Financial Times article points out that the issuers most at risk from a big US and advanced economy government bond sales program is emerging economies, with Hungary and Ukraine […]
Read more...Food needs ‘fundamental rethink’ BBC Sikh Signs For Package, UPS Driver Enters His Name As “TERRORIST” Consumerist Amex drops credit limit on customer for shopping where poor people shop Tom Barlow The yield curve (wonkish) Paul Krugman British banks may face second credit crunch in the New Year Independent Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad […]
Read more...A New York Times report on WaMu’s Grande Bouffe in the mortgage market is worth reading for the former employee quotes alone. For instance, use of controlled substances was acceptable as long as they were the productivity-enhancing sort: “I’d lie if I said every piece of documentation was properly signed and dated,” said Mr. Parsons, […]
Read more...Houses With No Furnace but Plenty of Heat New York Times Skipping sleep ‘hardens arteries’ BBC Gazan invents alternative to cooking gas Ma’an News Another unholy mess created by a message from the Pope Willem Buiter Burning Coal at Home Is Making a Comeback New York Times White House in foreclosure Rolfe Winkler UBS on […]
Read more...In past times of geopolitical stress, the dollar has generally rallies as investors move to safer havens. That behavior was not evident today as investors fretted about possible escalation of conflicts in the Middle East and South Asia. The euro went up a teeny bit, the yen faded slightly, the pound retreated. So where did […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal’s daily human interest story featured a holiday season tale of the Fuggerei, a Roman Catholic housing compound for the poor in Germany. The price of admission for those lucky enough to get in is yearly rent of one Rhein guilder, which equals 88 euro cents or $1.23, plus daily prayers for […]
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