Links: 2009-01-05

A number of the following posts are fairly controversial and I present them not so much because I agree, but rather because the ideas presented or the news is worthy of your attention. I highly recommend the Willem Buiter piece at the end. I will address it in greater detail at a later date.

Regulators probed Madoff eight times over 16 years: report – Reuters

Franken to be declared Senate victor in Minnesota – Reuters

Denmark’s resilient mortgage market: A slice of Danish – Economist

Re-training America’s workers: The people puzzle – Economist

Jared Diamond: Why Societies Collapse – Barry Ritholtz

Bad — and Good – News for China Power Utilities – Barrons

Unemployment insurance: A safety net in need of repair

Central banks and financial crises: Lessons from recent Latin American history

Rethinking urbanisation – VoxEU

Economists behaving badly – Paul Krugman

China Drills in East China Sea, Breaching Gas Pact, Sankei Says – Bloomberg

China’s demise much exaggerated – Telegraph

Can the US economy afford a Keynesian stimulus? – Willem Buiter