When I started learning about the underpinnings of the present financial debacle, I kept wondering how they could they have been so stupid. There was a lot of stupidity to go around, but the “they” in this case were not … Continue reading →
The other night I watched this PBS program on the Crash of ’29. It was made four years ago, so there were no tie-ins to the present crisis. But the mind can create them easily enough. Each downturn was preceded … Continue reading →
Another blast from the Obama past has been dropped, a bombshell interview from last January with the San Francisco Chronicle in which Obama said that the environmental policies he proposes would cause builders of new coal plants to go bankrupt. … Continue reading →
I haven’t yet read Manias, Panics, and Crashes, published in 2000. But I came across a recommendation in the comments section of some blog the other day and found the title and the Amazon description rather intriguing: “[Manias, Panics, and … Continue reading →
CNBC has gotten to the point where the events it relates resemble a horror movie of the economic variety. Financial markets around the world reel, countries like Iceland are going bankrupt. Nobody seems to know what’s what, what’s next, or … Continue reading →
[See this for background.] I was contemplating just how it is that someone like Richard Fuld of Lehman can look himself in the mirror right now and not throw up. But I’ve got a hypothesis about people such as Fuld, … Continue reading →
I must be a glutton for punishment, because I’ve been glancing at MSNBC again. The tone of the talking heads there (maybe that’s a misnomer; some of them seem more like shouting heads) is frenetic and energized. They look like … Continue reading →
I’d much rather write about the Red Sox. They’re doing great, up two in the best of five series against the Angels. Watching the game last night reminded me of one of the many things that’s so wonderful about sports: … Continue reading →
Most of us are knowledgeable about the sort of financial information we need to get along in life okay. For example, how to balance a checkbook. We know what Social Security benefits we might be receiving someday, as well as … Continue reading →
I’ve been thinking lately of this old nursery rhyme, and its idea that there can be complex and far-reaching negative repercussions from lack of timely remedies that would really have been quite simple: For want of a nail the shoe … Continue reading →
I was awakened today as usual by my clock radio, which happened to be set on a talk show. Blah, blah, blah about the financial crisis, with some sort of Wall Street “expert” saying that this happened because of a … Continue reading →
…”years of irresponsible failure to regulate have led us” to this crisis. He fails to add the little detail that the “irresponsible failure to regulate” was his own, as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, when he was the … Continue reading →