I shred papers going back 14 years. Wow.
Mobile Blogging from here.
Tags: personal
[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]
Shredding the Past
I shred papers going back 14 years. Wow.
Mobile Blogging from here.
Krugman Goes Medieval
A Dark Age of macroeconomics (wonkish) – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com:
“There’s no ambiguity in either case: both Fama and Cochrane are asserting that desired savings are automatically converted into investment spending, and that any government borrowing must come at the expense of investment – period.
What’s so mind-boggling about this is that it commits one of the most basic fallacies in economics: interpreting an accounting identity as a behavioral relationship…
After a change in desired savings or investment something happens to make the accounting identity hold. And if interest rates are fixed, what happens is that GDP changes to make S and I equal.
That’s actually the point of one of the ways multiplier analysis is often presented to freshmen.”
(Via NY Times Blogs.)
Ouch. Fama and Cochrane made a freshman mistake. That’s why political ideology is soft-think.
Getting Value for Our Money (or Not)
Bush overpaid banks in bailout, watchdog says – Yahoo! News:
“Overall, the panel and the analysts it retained to conduct the valuation study found that the Treasury used taxpayers’ money to pay $62.5 billion more than the value of assets in the 10 transactions it examined. By extrapolating to the more than 300 institutions that received money, the panel concluded that the government in effect paid $78 billion more than the actual value of the assets at the time.
‘Treasury chose to offer ‘one size fits all’ pricing in order to encourage all institutions to participate, and in so doing disregarded apparent differences in their financial condition,’ the report states. ‘A consequence is that Treasury effectively offered weaker participants greater subsidies than it offered to stronger participants.'”
(Via Yahoo! News.)
This was inevitable. Try to ram a plan that radically changed from day to day to fix a complex problem years in the making is going to make for “large” results. Depending on what Geitner puts out, we’ll see how good or bad in comparison. Personally and I don’t say this often, I’m with Newt Gingrich on this whole thing.
Obama Takes ’em to the “Chuch”
Part 1 Top Quote:
No, seriously…that’s the point!
Part 2 Top Quote:
Let’s put Americans to work doing the work that America needs done.
PREACH!
Blogging from the iPhone
This my first entry using iBlogger. Not too bad.
Salary Caps hit Wall Street
Obama’s cap on CEO pay strives to end era of excess | csmonitor.com:
“‘This is America. We don’t disparage wealth. And we believe that success should be rewarded,’ Obama said. ‘But what gets people upset – and rightfully so – are executives being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by US taxpayers.’
The cap on compensation marks a sharp pay cut for executives of some of the largest banks, such as Citigroup and Bank of America.
‘If these executives receive any additional compensation, it will come in the form of stock that can’t be paid up until taxpayers are paid back for their assistance,’ Obama said.”
(Via Christian Science Monitor.)
Contrary to conservative noises about communism, this is quintessentially American capitalist. Now if only corporate boards were actually independent of the executives they are supposed to oversee, we’d have this kind of check and balance all the time.
Stop Snitchin’ SEC Style
Lawmakers Criticize Role of SEC in Madoff Scheme – WSJ.com:
“‘You are both a captive regulator and a failed regulator,’ Harry Markopolos said of the SEC in highly anticipated testimony to a U.S. House subcommittee.
Mr. Markopolos detailed his nine-year effort to alert federal regulators about Madoff, who is accused of engineering one of the largest swindles in U.S. history. The SEC was ‘unable to understand’ the complex financial instruments involved in the alleged fraud, Mr. Markopolos said, and regulators weren’t interested in pursuing investigations against influential firms and investors.”
(Via Wall Street Journal Online.)
Whistleblower ignored. Surprise, surpirse. This is what you get when you have people who hate government, running government. The SEC had no defense either on this.
The group of SEC officials declined to speak specifically about the Madoff case, but said they were doing their best to protect investors.
“I think I speak for everyone when I say we hate fraud,” said Linda Thomsen, director of the SEC’s division of enforcement, said.
Lawmakers, however, weren’t impressed.
“Your job is to prevent fraud, not to hate it,” Mr. Kanjorski said, alternately describing the SEC’s testimony as “oatmeal” and a “traveler’s guide” that didn’t address the issues exposed by the Madoff case.
Bam!
Obama on Anderson Cooper 360
A Rose by Any Other Name
I took part in a discussion about divorce, abusive relationships, and how female submission plays a misogynous role in evangelical, and more widely Christian, circles. The book Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians in the Bible naturally surfaces, specifically the passage in Chapter 5 dealing with wives and husbands. It occurred to me how different the discussion might be if we stepped back and really took a look at Ephesians itself and the context it provides for its contents.
Virtually all scholars judge that it was not written by Paul himself but rather a disciple of his writing under Paul’s name. Such forgery was a common and accepted practice in the ancient world with the rationale that the student was merely building on the master’s ideas. It’s why the book is considered one of the Deutero-Pauline books.
I wonder if it were common knowledge that Paul didn’t write that epistle, would the drumbeat be so fierce on female submission? What would the justifications be?
Responsiblity
Obama: ‘I screwed up’ in Daschle withdrawal – White House- msnbc.com:
“‘I’ve got to own up to my mistake. Ultimately, it’s important for this administration to send a message that there aren’t two sets of rules — you know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes,’ Obama said on NBC’s ‘Nightly News with Brian Williams.'”
(Via MSNBC News.)
It’s sadly refreshing to see some honesty and forthrightness about himself in a President.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy