Wall street journal reports that this crisis was the predicted result of politically correct lending policies commanded by the Clinton administration, continued and worsened by the Bush administration. Carpe Diem reports that this crisis was predicted when these policies were introduced by the Clinton Administration. In 1999, the NY Times observed: Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic …
The financial crash
Brad de Long looks at the financial crisis, and concludes that the wise and good hand of government is necessary. Third, the market fundamentalists in other sectors will need to be quiet for quite a while. We have just seen financial markets rife with moral hazard, agency, and adverse selection problems crash spectacularly. Is this a situation in which we should move health care–also rife with moral hazard, agency, and adverse selection problems–toward a free market configuration? No. Market regulation …
carbon footprint
Do you want to reduce your carbon footprint Or do you want to drill here now.
Never forget, never forgive
Never forget, never forgive. Make them pay forever.
Thai middle class revolts against democracy
For two thousand years, it has been claimed that democracy inherently self destructs, that democracy destroys the conditions that make democracy possible. The fact that democracy worked pretty well during the twentieth century would seem contrary evidence – but a century is not a long time for such a test.
Diebold voting machines horribly wrong
xkcd gets it exactly right
The Hockey Stick Graph
Bishop Hill explains the Hockey Stick Graph. It is an exceedingly long and complicated story, even in his simplified version, but the short of it is:Â The global warmerists lied.
The success of globalization
Massive globalization — a major move towards free market capitalism — has brought over a billion people out of poverty, while sixty years of socialist chaos and violence has failed to convince most of the world that central planning is a very bad way to run any economy.“Ruble†symbolizes pretend money, unconvertible into goods, much as “Finland†symbolizes submission to a hostile power, and “Peso†symbolizes inflation. Globalism has done what socialism promised to do and failed to do: It …
Yellow bellied surrender monkeys
In the last ten years or so we have been hearing a lot of disturbing reports about Britain – reports of a society of fearful and servile subjects, of criminals acting with impunity, of the British accepting second class status to Islam. Maybe the gun lobby is exaggerating British submission to criminals, maybe racists and war hawks are exaggerating British submission to Islam, but this story of cowardice and betrayal from Basra fits with what we have been hearing about …
What has been happening in Georgia
The boundaries of all the Balkan and Caucasus states are ill defined, one blurs into the other, each contains people who feel themselves outsiders and oppressed. In some, like Estonia, “oppression†is merely that if you cannot speak the majority language, or a widely spoken international language such as English, you have poor job prospects. In others, oppression consists of robbery, rape, and murder. By and large the resentment is greater, and more likely to lead to bloody fratricidal violence, …