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With more and more major economists predicting recovery sometime later this year, many have forgotten that downside risks remain.  Berner, Roubini, Volcker, Krugman and Bernanke have all come out essentially saying they would not be surprised to see a ‘technical’ recovery at some point later this year.  Robert Gordon has gone as far as to [...]

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Geithner’s Plan on Pay Falls Short – Yves SmithGeithner is not going to interfere in private companies’ ability to make executive contracts. What is the likely outcome for pay then? How can pay be reformed?
What is Different this Time? – Rob Parteneau“Our beef with the equity market boils down to this: the widespread perception is [...]

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Will Hutton has a pretty good interview with Paul Krugman in the Guardian newspaper.  The exchange is quite long, so it gives you a fairly broad understanding of Krugman’s view on the global economy and specific country economies.  What I found especially interesting was Krugman’s admission that we are essentially flying blind.
The Federal Reserve has [...]

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The chain of events whereby easy money leads to malinvestment that impoverishes a society is now fully manifest in the United States.  You remember Victorville, CA where new homes were being demolished because it cost more to maintain them than to demolish them? (see post here)  Well, that same phenomenon is going to be at [...]

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Leader Limbaugh: Chalk One Up to Obama, DNC – 538
Limbaugh tops the list–not only among Democrats, but Republicans and all national adults surveyed–as the figure identified as "the main person speaking for the Republican Party today."

Reflektionen von Nassim N. Taleb und Daniel Kahneman zur Finanzkrise – Blick Log
eine Podiumsdiskussion zwischen Taleb und Kahneman. Das war [...]

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Alan Blinder, David Leonhardt, and Alan Auerbach talk about deficits.  Leonhardt had a well-regarded piece in the New York Times on the issue linked below.

There are two basic truths about the enormous deficits that the federal government will run in the coming years.
The first is that President Obama’s agenda, ambitious as it may be, [...]

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Marc Chandler, Global Head of Currency Strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman has a good piece out today highlighting the differing economic policy agendas of the BRIC group (Brazil, Russia, India and China).  In it he suggests CRIBS is a more appropriate moniker for the group as it is China and Russia leading the way for [...]

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"In many ways the effect of the crash on embezzlement was more significant than on suicide. To the economist embezzlement is the most interesting of crimes. Alone among the various forms of larceny it has a time parameter. Weeks, months, or years may elapse between the commission of the crime and its discovery. (This is [...]

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Letterman Defends Palin Jokes – Political Wire
The jokes were over the top really. But Palin is obviously pandering to a certain segment of the population in her response here. Some of the routine was genuinely funny, but, on the whole, it was a bit cringe-worthy.

Two Ways to Deleverage an Economy by Bill Bonner
"It’s the dumb [...]