The Price of Disgust – Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog:
“But most people do not think like economists. When offered 10 percent or 20 percent or even 30 percent of the total, they are disgusted by the inequity — and willing to pay the price for that disgust by rejecting the offer.”
(Via Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog.)
Talk about “bounded rationality!”
Economists on the Bailout – Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog:
“The only thing that seems to be moving faster than the financial crisis is the policy debate. The latest development is a statement that summarizes what I think of as the emerging consensus from academic economists; it expresses concern about various aspects of both the Paulson plan in particular, and the policy process in general.”
(Via Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog.)
Slow down. Take a breath everybody.
FactCheck.org: Who Caused the Economic Crisis?:
“So who is to blame? There’s plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn’t fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn’t do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of ‘layered irresponsibility … with hard-working homeowners and billionaire villains each playing a role.’ Here’s a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:
- The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.
- Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.
- Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.
- Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.
- The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.
- Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.
- Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.
- Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.
- The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.
- An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.
- Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.”
(Via FactCheck.org.)
Competing Tax Plans: Two Perspectives – Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog:
(Via Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog.)
I love freakonomics. Looking at the complete set of graphs breaks down each candidates’ tax plans. It clearly lays out the candidates’ priorities.
Obama has come of the points I would include, equity stakes, tax cuts to middle class spenders. But I would also:
What would you do?
Fareed Zakaria: Palin Is Ready? Please. | Newsweek Voices – Fareed Zakaria | Newsweek.com:
“Palin has been given a set of talking points by campaign advisers, simple ideological mantras that she repeats and repeats as long as she can. (‘We mustn’t blink.’) But if forced off those rehearsed lines, what she has to say is often, quite frankly, gibberish.”
(Via NewsWeek.)
Ouch. I think the verdict is almost in. The upcoming debate is her last chance.
YouTube – Jack Cafferty Tells Us How He Really Feels About Sarah Palin:
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(Via YouTube.)
It’s getting ugly.
McCain Suspends Campaign | Views | TheRoot.com:
“In the after-swirl of John McCain’s campaign-suspension gambit Wednesday, one analyst offered this assessment: ‘It’s the longest Hail Mary pass in the history of either football or Marys.’
Okay, it was just a Facebook status update from a declared liberal in Pennsylvania, but in a very real way it captures the desperation that seemed to envolope Camp McCain yesterday. Now that we know the chronology of the day’s events, it seems that a more apt football analogy for McCain’s move would have been ‘intentional grounding,’ a deliberate attempt to look like you’re making a play when in fact you’re just getting rid of the ball to avoid an imminent and costly loss of yards, known in the parlance as getting sacked.”
(Via The Root.)
More McCoward? Looks so.
Obama rebuffs McCain’s call to delay debate – Yahoo! News:
“‘This is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess,’ Obama said in Clearwater, Fla. ‘It’s going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once.'”
(Via Yahoo! News.)
Priceless. A friend called McCain “McCoward” for this. Harsh, but true.
YouTube – CBS Sarah Palin interview:
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(Via YouTube.)
Now I know why they ban reporters from questioning her. Embarrassment.
