The next time you hear a politician talk about the number of jobs saved or created by the stimulus package or listen to a commentator on CNBC talking about the improving labor market hark back to this story. It’s from the WSJ and it’s the unfortunate reality that isn’t and maybe can’t be addressed. The […]
Archive for November, 2009
Posted in 
What Makes Dubai Different From AIG
Posted by Tom Lindmark on November 30th, 2009
Many thanks to Dubai for providing fodder to the blogosphere over a slow weekend. Much has been written (too much?) about what seems to me at least to be a minor story. In most respects, the travails of Dubai simply represent the natural evolution of bad real estate investments. Inevitably, overly aggressive and highly leveraged […]
Is It Time For A New Fed Chairman?
Posted by Tom Lindmark on November 30th, 2009
Yves Smith has taken up the battle to prevent the reappointment of Ben Bernanke as Fed chairman. While I agree in principal with her cause, I do think her rationale for denying him the post misses the mark. When CEOs preside over disasters, they are fired. Captains go down with their ships. And Bernanke needs […]
Is There Nothing That Is Not For Sale On Capitol Hill?
Posted by Tom Lindmark on November 23rd, 2009
This a post that I wrote in late November. In light of the bribes that have floated through the Senate over the past couple of days in order to move the health care bill along, I thought I would put it up again. Here is a link to the most recent WSJ article on the […]
The Stimulus Fallacy
Posted by Tom Lindmark on November 23rd, 2009
I’m not a big a big Krugman fan. Not that he isn’t an excellent economist but he usually seems more interested, or at least as interested, in pushing a political agenda rather than one grounded in economics. Having said that, I found this Op-Ed in the NYT today, pretty interesting. I think he’s made some […]
Mortgage Backed Securities – What Happens When The Training Wheels Come Off?
Posted by Tom Lindmark on November 21st, 2009
Calculated Risk points to an interesting but short article at Bloomberg by Meredith Whitney in which she postulates that once the Fed withdraws its support for the mortgage backed securities market, mortgage rates will move up and the banks will be faced with more writedowns. CR plots the historical spread of of the 30 year […]
Interested In The Health Care Debate? Then Read Keith Hennessey!
Posted by Tom Lindmark on November 20th, 2009
I’m bushed tonight so no long blogging but I did want to remind you of the best source in the entire blogosphere from which to follow the health care debate. It’s Keith Hennessey.com. It’s true that Hennessey comes from a Republican background but for my money he’s the most unbiased writer on the subject around. […]
