June 2009

With more and more major economists predicting recovery sometime later this year, many have forgotten that downside risks remain.  Berner, Roubini, Volcker, Krugman and Bernanke have all come out essentially saying they would not be…

Geithner's Plan on Pay Falls Short - Yves SmithGeithner is not going to interfere in private companies' ability to make executive contracts. What is the likely outcome for pay then? How can pay be reformed? What is Different this Time?…

Will Hutton has a pretty good interview with Paul Krugman in the Guardian newspaper.  The exchange is quite long, so it gives you a fairly broad understanding of Krugman’s view on the global economy and specific country economies.  What I…

The chain of events whereby easy money leads to malinvestment that impoverishes a society is now fully manifest in the United States.  You remember Victorville, CA where new homes were being demolished because it cost more to maintain them…

Leader Limbaugh: Chalk One Up to Obama, DNC - 538 Limbaugh tops the list--not only among Democrats, but Republicans and all national adults surveyed--as the figure identified as "the main person speaking for the Republican…

Alan Blinder, David Leonhardt, and Alan Auerbach talk about deficits.  Leonhardt had a well-regarded piece in the New York Times on the issue linked below. There are two basic truths about the enormous deficits that the federal…

Marc Chandler, Global Head of Currency Strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman has a good piece out today highlighting the differing economic policy agendas of the BRIC group (Brazil, Russia, India and China).  In it he suggests CRIBS is a…

"In many ways the effect of the crash on embezzlement was more significant than on suicide. To the economist embezzlement is the most interesting of crimes. Alone among the various forms of larceny it has a time parameter. Weeks,…

Letterman Defends Palin Jokes - Political Wire The jokes were over the top really. But Palin is obviously pandering to a certain segment of the population in her response here. Some of the routine was genuinely funny, but, on the…