Share
Steve Horwitz had an interesting read last week on Friedrich von Hayek, the Nobel Prize winning Austrian School economist. Von Hayek is best known for his 1944 Libertarian call to arms “Road to Serfdom” and is generally considered one of the fathers of the free market ideology.
In Horwitz’s piece, he points out that Hayek was [...]

Share
This morning, I ran across a post by Prieur du Plessis, which linked out to a Stephen Roach interview on Charlie Rose.
Roach is the head of Morgan Stanley Asia and has been a voice to listen to when trying to discern where China is headed and how its relationship with the United States will develop. [...]

Share
Remember the iconic Depression-era movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, in which Jimmy Stewart plays the wholesome young man in Washington out to do good? Well, Mr. Smith could just as easily have been your friendly banker at Washington Mutual. Unfortunately, Mr. Smith lost his way and turned predatory lender – and that’s the subject [...]

Share
I just came across a post on Zero Hedge called “An Overview Of The Fed’s Intervention In Equity Markets Via The Primary Dealer Credit Facility.” Now, that’s a mouthful. As far as I can discern, the post’s purpose is to expose alleged equities market manipulation by the Federal Reserve. However, I found the argument rather [...]

Share
The Seattle Times has a must-read piece on Washington Mutual today which reveals a lot of the fine detail on how the company was run and what led to its demise (hat tip calculated Risk).
As with many of the other busted financial giants like Northern Rock and Lehman Brothers, indications that something was amiss were [...]

Share
Watch the hour-long retrospective which aired tonight on PBS’s Frontline.  It should be very enlightening in regards to the seeds of the bubble and meltdown.  It examines who the players in the 1990s and 2000s were, what their attitude to regulation was, and how lax regulation created a bubble and a bust.
Also see the following [...]

Share
This is a cross-post from an article I wrote at the finance site New Deal 2.0, a one-stop-shop for current news, sharp analysis and potential solutions of the country’s fiscal crisis. Edward linked to this in this morning’s links, saying “I don’t agree 100% but this is a good overview” – tied to the Austrian business [...]

Share
Remember when Paul Krugman asked aloud “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?” He had a very well-received answer.  But he left out something.
The elephant in the room was debt.  No one seems to have been noticing.
Below is a British video parody version asking economists and political leaders the same question (in a slightly [...]

Share
In my last post, I presented you with a bunch of data on debt levels broken down by sector of the economy (see “A brief look at the Asset-Based Economy at economic turns”).  I found it interesting that a secular pattern seemed to be at play when looking at the household debt charts.
Notice the three [...]

Share
This morning I again wanted to challenge my somewhat bullish medium-term outlook but bearish longer-term view on the US economy – this time by looking at the data on debt. What follows is going to be a very numbers-heavy post.  So, I apologize in advance if you are not a numbers jockey like me. But, [...]