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Category Archives: Politics
The Quantum Physics of the Bailout
Right now I feel as though we’re all, collectively, like Schrödinger’s cat before the box is opened, except that instead of two different outcomes there are dozens. Will we revert to ad-hoc, case-by-case responses requiring no legislative approval? Will the … Continue reading
How Bad Could Things Get?
Your cheery upbeat forecast, on a day when stocks are up 3%, comes from Willem Buiter: If the markets fear that the nays have thrown their toys out of the pram for the long term, the following scenario is quite … Continue reading
Looking for Hope
Is democracy the winner here? Clearly, the people have spoken, through their elected representatives, and they’ve said no to the Paulson bailout plan. If that means a market crash, so be it. At 1,145, the S&P is now 27% off … Continue reading
Oh Shit
The bailout act has just failed to pass the House, getting only 202 of the required 218 votes. This is what happens when you have a free-rider problem: it’s in Congress’s collective interest to pass the unpopular act. But if … Continue reading
McCain’s Economics
Don’t ask me who won the debate in terms of persuading formerly undecided voters to fix an allegiance. The number of undecided voters who understand the difference between financial and fiscal is minuscule, and the number of those who think … Continue reading
Flow Chart of the Day
Zubin’s flow chart of the Palin Economy: As Zubin says, Not only will the bailout help us with the overall economy, but we’ll also improve health care, jobs, trade, the budget, AND the tax system. And one other thing, too: … Continue reading
Bailout Talks Lose Sight of Cost Question
Andy Kessler reckons that if the government buys up bad loans at 35 cents on the dollar and eventually receives 50 cents for them, it could make well over $1 trillion on this bailout. I’m not sure how that works: … Continue reading
How to Get the House Republicans On Board
Is this elegant, or simply disingenuous? There are disagreements over aspects of the rescue plan, but there is no disagreement that something substantial must be done. The legislative process is sometimes not very pretty, but we are going to get … Continue reading
What Was Paulson Begging For?
It’s the defining moment of Thursday’s breakdown in negotiations: In the Roosevelt Room after the session, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, not to … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
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When it Rains, it Pours
This is really, really bad. In a nutshell: the bailout package, which everybody thought was a done deal, has been undone by some combination of Republican recalcitrance and the heat of the presidential campaign. At the same time, WaMu’s gone … Continue reading
Posted in bailouts, banking, bonds and loans, economics, Politics
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The Bailout Arrives
McCain returning to Washington to work on the bailout? Unhelpful — and, in fact, he’s still in New York, at the Clinton Global Initiative, he hasn’t even gotten started on his legislative work yet. But McCain announcing that he was … Continue reading
Didn’t Panic
I was right about what Bush was going to say, but I was wrong about how he said it. This was one of the best speeches of his presidency, if not the best. I was watching in a noisy bar, … Continue reading
Don’t Panic
I have a feeling I know what President Bush is going to say in his address to the nation tonight, but the single biggest message has already been sent, thanks to his decision to schedule the last-minute broadcast coming on … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
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The Rehabilitation of Christopher Dodd
The biggest and most pleasant surprise of the past week, for me, has been Chris Dodd. If you had told me a year ago that right now we’d be staring down the worst financial crisis yet, I’d’ve believed you. But … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
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Does Paulson’s Lie Matter?
Paul Krugman today catches Hank Paulson in a lie (chapter and video and verse at Think Progress). Does this mean that Paulson is Not To Be Trusted? That’s what Krugman thinks: If Paulson can’t be honest about what he himself … Continue reading
Can Hank Paulson Lead?
I’m not particularly fluent in the language of political theater, but I get two clear messages from today’s testimony. Paulson is the grown-up, telling Congress what to do: I need literally unimaginable sums of money, he’s saying, because everything we’ve … Continue reading
The Trillion-Dollar Question
It’s always worth remembering the famous question that Dsquared posed back in February 2003: Can anyone, particularly the rather more Bush-friendly recent arrivals to the board, give me one single example of something with the following three characteristics: 1. It … Continue reading
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Hank Paulson, Buy-Sider
The details of RTC II are emerging, and it’s pretty simple: give Hank Paulson $700 billion, let him buy up mortgage-related toxic waste, and thereby rescue the banks and save the global financial system. Henry Blodget asks one key question: … Continue reading
Posted in bonds and loans, Politics, regulation
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McCain vs Obama: The Lehman Responses
John McCain and Barack Obama both have official responses up to the Lehman collapse, and McCain’s is much better than Obama’s: shorter, punchier, more to the point. I score it 6-0 to McCain. McCain first: The crisis in our financial … Continue reading
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Larry Summers, Politician
Lloyd Grove has a long interview with Larry Summers today. The political bit is the most interesting: Summers all but says he’d love to return as Treasury secretary ("I’m very happy right now doing what I’m doing, teaching and consulting … Continue reading
$250,000 per Year Counts as Rich
Slate’s Moneybox column is mostly home to Dan Gross, but occasionally other people write for it too. Back in May, it was fine for Sam Grobart and Tara Siegel Bernard to write that "for a family of four living in … Continue reading
Posted in fiscal and monetary policy, pay, Politics, wealth
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Barack Obama, Economic Policy Wonk
David Leonhardt has a must-read piece on Barack Obama’s economic policy in this weekend’s NYT Magazine. It’s long (over 8,000 words), and even so it doesn’t tease out all the implications of, say, Obama’s 100%-auction cap-and-trade system on US fiscal … Continue reading
Posted in fiscal and monetary policy, Politics
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Missed Connections, UN-Russia Edition
Don’t feel bad, Carl Icahn. Remember when you couldn’t get Steve Ballmer on the blower? Well, it happens to the best of us: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has so far been unable to contact Russian President Dmitry Medvedev by telephone … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
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GDP Statistics and the 2008 Election
Is it weird to link to Dean Baker three times over the course of three successive blog entries? Not when he comes out with stuff like this: It is very likely that the third quarter GDP number will be negative. … Continue reading
Posted in economics, Politics, statistics
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Chart of the Day: The InTrade Electoral Map
Electoralmap.net puts the latest InTrade prices into graphical form: Looks like Florida alone isn’t remotely enough to get McCain into the White House. Update: Chris Masse points me to electoralmarkets.com, a sexy flash version of the above. Cool! (HT: Caveat … Continue reading
Posted in charts, Politics, prediction markets
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