News from around the web: 2009-12-04

I will be posting on the employment situation report shortly. Despite my bullish comments yesterday and claims that we will be adding jobs next quarter in Jobless claims fall to lowest this year, I wasn’t expecting the unemployment rate to dip or for non-farm payrolls to be any better than a 100,000 loss.  The numbers were surprising, but the labour force participation rate, and the birth-death model explain some of it.

For now here are the finance links. The non-finance ones will be out later

• Booming banks ‘sowing seeds for next credit crisis’ in Europe – Independent.ie
• Bernanke, Pro and Con – Economix Blog – NYTimes.com
• Rajiv Sethi: The Economics of Hyman Minsky
• FT Alphaville – Izabella Kaminska – How utilities are just like banks
• FT Alphaville – Tracy Alloway – NAO: First the good news… (A nice rundown on how the 850 billion pounds of British taxpayer bailout money could be recouped…or not.)
• The Bad Ben Bernanke Bet – Paul Kedrosky
• The Mess That Greenspan Made: Jim Bunning does not ‘heart’ Ben Bernanke
• Dean Baker: David Wessel Can’t Acknowledge that His Colleagues Really Really Blew It (Exactly right here. I remember reading stuff from Danielle DiMartino of the Dallas Morning News and now at the Dallas Fed. She was one of the few who were warning of the bubble. Most other reporters were just cheerleaders denying what was obvious to anyone who ran the numbers.)
• Arming Goldman With Pistols Against Public: Alice Schroeder – Bloomberg.com (Janet Tavakoli attacked this piece as poor journalism and anti-Goldman. I disagree. It’s not anti-Goldman at all. It’s pointing out that the mood of the country is angry)
• Inside Dick Fuld’s Bunker – The Daily Beast
• Iron Cage for Nothing – The Baseline Scenario
• Financial Armageddon: Red Ink: Not an Illusion
• Bill Black: Geithner as Our “Last Action Hero”
• Rates on 30-year mortgages set new record low – Yahoo! Finance
• U.S. retail sales miss view on weak holiday start| Reuters

Distraction of the Day: The 15-pound baby.  Wow, that’s one healthy little package!