Qantas’ Pilots vs. Wall Street’sHere’s a thought, apropos of (almost) nothing: The cure to our economic woes has nothing to do with finding exactly the right monetary policy, or getting the Chinese to price the Yuan “fairly,” or bridging today’s yawning political chasms to reach necessary compromises. The first step is to seriously and completely...Read More
Borrow at 0%, Lend at 3%, Make Billions Is it customary, when someone is charged with fraud and awaiting trial, to leave them in possession of the victim’s credit cards, and, indeed, to continue to allow them to spend and gamble the victim’s money? In the corporate arena, apparently the answer is “yes.” U.S. vs....Read More
Recessions Happen, Crashes Have CausesHere are my thoughts/reactions after reading “The Bank Job: Goldman’s Elite on the Crisis and Bonus Rage,” by Bethany McLean in the January, 2010 issue of Vanity Fair (it’s online now). That is, once I gargled to get the bad taste out of my mouth. One. If your agenda is to...Read More
Revisionist History As historians know full well, Presidential reputations sometimes take decades to settle out, experiencing ups and downs in the meantime. For example, Harry Truman left office in 1953 quite unpopular. Over time, though, his stock gradually rose as society came to appreciate — after the fact — his straight-talking populism, common sense, and...Read More
‘Non-Distressed,’ ‘Unforced,’ ‘Optional’ A continuing thread on this blog has been the so-far lurching efforts to label key features of today’s economic landscape (“We Have Some With Ham, Too”) So, while it’s certainly not a household term yet, “The Great Recession” looks increasingly likely to be what we collectively call what’s happened the last two...Read More
“The Great . . . [Something]“As the evolving financial crisis ratchets up a notch — or two — so is the gravity of the names being tossed out as would-be labels. So far, the leading candidate is probably “The Crash of 2008.” However, just in the last few days, a new slew of contenders have...Read More
