What would you think if someone told you that all of the reasons advanced so far about the causes of this nasty recession were false and that there was another very simple explanation? If you’re like me you might want to not know about it. Throwing out all of the notions, ideas and conclusions running […]
Archive for April 21st, 2009
Was It Energy Prices, Not Housing That Caused The Recession?
Bad Advice On Blogging
This counts as my good deed of the week. If any of you read the WSJ article about blogging today and have dollar signs dancing in front of your eyes, wake up and come to your senses. I want you to read this and repeat it over and over again to yourselves. You cannot make […]
Fumbling And Stumbling Over TARP
Is it time to shelve all of the plans for resolving the banks and just go back to a plan that we know works? Consider what’s transpired over the past couple days. · Tim Geithner says over the weekend that he will be the arbiter of whether or not the banks can pay back their […]
Things Your Mother Probably Taught You
From the category of “What were they thinking about?” comes an article in the NYT that informs us that people who have defibrillators implanted by specialists have fewer problems. Patients who had heart defibrillators implanted by specialists had fewer serious complications than patients who got them implanted by other types of doctors, according to a study released […]
The Noose Tightens On Chrysler
Nine days to go and it looks like any deal to save Chrysler from BK is a long way off. The banks have told the government they won’t write-down the value of their debt nearly as much as the government has requested. From the WSJ: Chrysler owes the lenders, which include banks such as Citigroup Inc. and J.P. […]
Caterpillar Posts A Loss And Cuts Profit Forecast
I won’t posit that as “so goes Caterpillar, so goes the wold’s economy” but it’s outlook for the rest of the year probably functions as a pretty good if unconventional indicator. In that case, things don’t look too rosie. From the WSJ, here’s what the company had to say this morning about first quarter results […]
Texas Does Not Have A Magic Anti-Bubble Bullet
Felix Salmon and Rortybomb have posts up that suggest Texas mortgage regulations protected the state’s homeowners from being ravaged by falling prices and foreclosures. Here is what Salmon posted: “Which nanny state: Banned its mortgage lenders from imposing prepayment penalties; Banned balloon repayments; Banned negative amortization mortgages; Banned loans based only on collateral value without regard […]