» It Came From Wasilla
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Master of None
An urban techno-phile with a music fetish who is also a finance geek. Enjoy. Leave a comment, and I'll get back to you.
Jun 30
Jun 06
May 30
“ On financial sector issues, the lobbies look stronger than ever. “You can’t recover without us” appears to be a winning slogan for big banks and their appointees. Tough financial regulation may still appear later this year, but it looks like an uphill struggle – and there is no sense that the administration even wants to break vested interests in this sphere.
— Simon Johnson, Baselinescenario.com
May 28
NYC has shut down traffic on Broadway around Times Square, perhaps permanently. NY Times
May 22
“ Most of us aren’t losing sleep and sucking down Marlboros because the Dow is going to fall another thousand points, but because we don’t know whether it will fall or not — and human beings find uncertainty more painful than the things they’re uncertain about.
— Daniel Gilbert, Harvard psychologist, via NY Times
And We Hear Such Voices Today
“And when the moral reckoning turns to the men known as high-value terrorists, I can assure you they were neither innocent nor victims.”
Dick Cheney, defending his administration’s use of torture.
And the counter-argument, from our fearless leader:
“Every now and then, there are those who think that America’s safety and success requires us to walk away from the sacred principles enshrined in this building. And we hear such voices today.”
Pres. Barack Obama, speaking at the National Archives, where the Declaration of Independance, Constitution, and Bill of Rights are housed.
May 20
Gary Gorton's Shadow Banking Regulatory Wish-list
The problem with the shadow banking system is that’s it’s just as important as the ‘regular’ banking system, only more susceptible to panics because it hasn’t been subject to the same regulations as traditional retail banks.
Arnold Kling, summarizing Gary Gorton, via Marginal Revolution
- Senior tranches of securitizations of approved asset classes should be insured by the government.
- The government must supervise and examine “banks,” i.e., securitizations, rather than rely on ratings agencies. That is, the choices of asset class, portfolio, and tranching must be overseen be examiners.
- Entry into securitization should be limited, and any firm that enters is deemed a “bank” and subject to supervision.
The Dark Side of Democrats
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The Boston Review conducted a study to try and measure if the Madoff scandal could trigger a rise in anti-semitism vis a vis the broader financial crisis. The study indicated that, yes, it could.
It also indicated that Democrats were more likely to blame “the Jews”. However, the authors don’t probe deeply into why that is the case, perhaps because doing so might evoke accusations of a different type of prejudice.
“ In the end, much of banking is likely to become boring again. Special interests are convinced that they can fend off the regulatory challenge, but I find this increasingly unlikely. Enough people have seen through what they did, how they did it, and what they keep on doing. No doubt the outcomes will be messy and less than optimal, but at this point “less than optimal” is much preferable to “systemic meltdown
— Simon Johnson, Baselinescenario.com
May 11
Think incomes will go up and saving down? Then we're OK. If not...
It may just be a ‘recession’ in GDP terms, but we’re entering a consumption depression:
“For debt to return to a more sustainable trend, real consumer spending would need to grow by just 1.3% a year from 2009 to 2013, the weakest such five-year stretch since the 1930s. It could grow even more slowly than that if taxes rise faster…or if stagnant productivity impedes real-income growth.
Economist.com (graph from Calculated Risk)
May 03
» Cycle-proof regulation for Financial institutions
Some good ideas for reform from Prof. Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago, although most of them appear to fall into the “easier said than done” category.
Dear. God.
Taking processed food to new and horrifying levels. Click through to see what it looks like on the inside… if you dare.
Via Gizmodo
Brilliant solution for gardening in small spaces
When you’ve only got a few square feet of direct sunlight, you have limited options. Hopefully my next apartment will have a few South-facing windows.
