Some articles you might find of interest, updates about matters discussed on the FM website.
Contents
- About government efforts to control the news
- At last, sensible action to mitigate the housing crisis
- News about the financial crisis
- About the US dollar
(1) About government efforts to control the news
“Media Criticism, Chicago-Style“, Glenn Reynolds, op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, 5 November 2009
For more information, see Foolish but dangerous attempts to manage the media by Team Obama.
(2) At last, sensible action to mitigate the housing crisis
“Fannie to Rent to Owners in Foreclosure“, Wall Street Journal, 5 November 2009
For more information, see these posts about the housing crisis:
- Diagnosing the eagle, chapter I — the housing bust, 6 December 2007
- A vital but widely misunderstood aspect of our financial crisis, 18 September 2008 — Too many homes.
- Destroying houses in order to boost home prices, 16 December 2008
- The housing crisis allows America to look in the mirror. What do we see?, 9 March 2009
- Another step to solving the housing crisis: downsize cities by destroying neighborhoods, 2 April 2009
(3) News about the financial crisis
(a) “Why not a WPA?“, Paul Krugmann, op-ed in the New York Times, 6 November 2009
(b) “Tax Cuts and Recoveries“, David Leonhardt, blog of the New York Times, 3 November 2009 — Important information for the “tax cuts cure all ills” crowd.
(c) “Sudden Financial Arrest“, Ricardo J. Caballero (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER), IMF, 2 November 2009 — Interesting reading, esp considering all those comments in 2008 mocking evidence that we were in a recession — and outraged at my assertions that the world economy suffered a “cardiac arrest” in the 4th quarter of 2008.
For more information, see Financial crisis – what’s happening? how will this end?
(4) About the US dollar
“Death Cometh for the Greenback“, Joseph E. Stiglitz (Prof at Columbia U, chief economist of the World Bank from 1997 to 2000), National Interest , November/December 2009
For more information, see these posts:
- A brief note on the US Dollar. Is this like August 1914?, 8 November 2007 — How the current situation is as unstable financially as was Europe geopolitically in early 1914.
- Economic Warfare, 10 November 2007
- The post-WWII geopolitical regime is dying. Chapter One , 21 November 2007 — Why the current geopolitical order is unstable, describing the policy choices that brought us here.
- “The changing balance of global financial power”, by Brad Setser, 22 August 2008
- Is America’s decline inevitable? No., 21 January 2008
- Geopolitical implications of the current economic downturn, 24 January 2008 – How will this recession end? With re-balancing of the global economy — and a decline of the US dollar so that the US goods and services are again competitive. No more trade deficit, and we can pay our debts.
- Our metastable Empire, built on a foundation of clay, 3 March 2008
- Words to fear in the 21st century: Lǎo hǔ, lǎo hǔ, Lǎo hǔ, 14 July 2008, 14 July 2008
- Effective treatment for this crisis will come with “The Master Settlement of 2009″, 5 October 2008
- Causes of the financial crisis (no, its not the usual list), 29 October 2008
- A look at out future, 2009 – 2010 … and beyond, 9 November 2008
- Fetters of the mind blind us so that we cannot see a solution to this crisis, 1 April 2009
- Today’s hot rumor: Fisk’s story about a conspiracy to wreck the US dollar, 6 October 2009
Afterword
Reference pages about other topics appear on the right side menu bar, including About the FM website page.
Please share your comments by posting below. Per the FM site’s Comment Policy, please make them brief (250 word max), civil and relevant to this post. Or email me at fabmaximus at hotmail dot com (note the spam-protected spelling).
I don’t know why anyone would use Paul Krugmann as a news source. He writes as if the great depression was the best economic time in American history. He is also the only person to receive the Noble Prize posthumously.
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FM reply: Can you cite any economist who agrees with anything in your comment? I doubt it. You write as an authority on these things, which I very much doubt you are.
Crackpot gibberish by a kook. Glenn Reynolds is a classic example of the kind of crank who brandishes his crayola-scrawled manifestos of the kind you find in the locked ward at Bellevue, but who gets inexplicably adulated by people who should know better.
This site has taken a drastic turn for the worse over the last couple of weeks and now circles the bowl, with the suction drawing it down. We can look forward to new FM articles praising the hollow earth theory, welteislehre, orgone energy, and the Unarius saucer cult any day now…
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FM reply: I don’t know why you consider this as reasonable criticism, unless you believe that Mclaren is the measure of all things. Try giving reasons for your disagreement.
FM: “(2) At last, sensible action to mitigate the housing crisis”
The Federal Government now either owns or controls 90% of the housing market and it couldn’t be in worse shape. This program is only going to continue to keep the housing market grossly overvalued. You can’t possibly think this is a good idea.
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FM reply: There is no solution other than time. Meanwhile we must mitigate the damage caused by many millions of foreclosures. What is the point of evicting people from their homes (they find a new one to rent), so the creditor can either sell at a large loss (probably to a speculator who will rent the house) — all at a vast cost in fees — plus damage to the house and neighborhood while the home is vacant?
This just eliminates the middle steps, and the resulting costs (to the family in the home, to the creditor, and the neighborhood). The creditor marks the property down, the homeowner becomes a renter. I do not see the basis for your objection.
I find it amusing that the first two comments on this thread are nothing but ad-hominem attacks on two men to be found on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Evidence, or course, is never needed. This is cost of running a successful website, I guess. The comment threads go to pieces.
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FM reply: Yes, unfortunately. Any suggestions are welcome to address this problem. My favorite suggestion on these matters (albeit by implication) was by Weary_G:
“from Instapundit, who usually manages to disagree with dissenters without being insulting”
The Instapundit does not allow comments on his site, hence has neither has dissenters nor replies to them (except on a very selective basis). He is smart.
The comments hint of what the “man in the street” is thinking about.
Welcome Mystery Science Blog 3k
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru-gpLcFpow&hl=en&fs=1&]
I thought it was in the public domain that Paul Krugmann is an idiot. You can forgo the ad-hominem part by reading his writings and looking at history. He has written how the mid 1930s had 9% GDP growth and the latter 30s had 11% GDP growth. He over looks Roosevelt devaluing the dollar 40% and printing money making all Americans poorer.
Now he thinks we need to bring back a program of having people dig holes on even days and filling them in on odd days. America can’t pay it’s bills yet his solution is to run up the plastic.
Krugmann was once an economist. He’s now a Marxist hack hoping when the time comes he’ll be included in the elite.
I’ve never heard of Glenn Reynolds but anyone who identifies himself as a libertarian transhumanist probably has a screw loose and wouldn’t be recognized by the nearest conservative. There’s an ad-hominem for you.
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FM reply: I doubt you can many (if any) economists who agree with you, as every economists I know believes is Nobel Prize was well-deserved. Nonetheless, IMO he’s an extreme leftist — who exploits his rep as an economist to work as an attack dog and polemicist for the Democratic Party. The two roles are very compatatible, unfortunately.
Glenn Reynolds runs of the highest traffic websites of its kind on the Internet. The “libertarian” wing of conservatism (pro-war, pro-individual rights, socially liberal, economically ignorant) is a growing force in America — and perhaps on its way to becoming the most powerful faction in the conservative end of the political spectrum. He’s a brilliant guy, widely and deservedly respected even by those who disagree with some or all of his views.
You will regret mocking transhumanity, when the mothership arrives!
I’m sitting here thinking the dating pool for libertarian transhumanists must be pretty slim. There may not be any left when the mothership arrives.
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FM reply: Glenn Reynolds is married, and his wife looks pretty hot IMO — See this photo.
From #9: “I’m sitting here thinking the dating pool for libertarian transhumanists must be pretty slim.”
Actually, that is probably not an issue to Glenn Reynolds, as he has made his preference for sex robots clear: (“The Ole Perfesser moves beyond my abilities to satirize him“, SadlyNo blog, April 14, 2008).
>America can’t pay it’s bills yet his solution is to run up the plastic.
When the house is on fire is it really a good time to worry about water conservation? Or as one CEO told me – “sure we are screwed – but do you want to die now or later”.
O brave new world! That has such people in’t!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-wzbjpiNyM&hl=en&fs=1&]
Is that Melanie Griffith? Wow…
Yes. Pass the Geritol, and bring me my cane :P
The more I read about libertarian transhumanism, the more ad-hominem attacks seem appropriate.
I also miss the 80s
People who wear beanie hats should not be surprised if their propellors get spun once in awhile.
As a wife free un-house broken 40 something male, I just can’t see putting money into sex robots. Especially when you can order a hooker online and have her derived in 30 minutes or less.
Ouch! Cancel my call to GM.
I’d bet if Purell and KY got together with a condom manufacturer, the hooker market would really open up and put an end to sex with machines. Everything else a wife does can be outsourced.
Not that I’m in to hookers. I just use the eros website to gauge economic conditions. Some guy watch the dow, others currencies, others gold. I look at the total number of hookers on the market and whether they are raising or lowering prices.
Commodification refers to those processes through which social relations are reduced to an exchange relation, or as Karl Marx (1978) refers to it in the Communist Manifesto, as “callous ‘cash payment.'”
Get thee behind me, Marxist!
http://it.stlawu.edu/~global/pagescapital/commodification.html
Mikyo, you must be a romantic, even chimps trade resources for sex.
I’ve wondered why Communists ban porn. I guess under Marx, tossing off to a picture is a social relation that has suffered Commodification. It’s all so clear now. Clearer once I put my glasses on.
What? Just gimme a minute to wipe off my monitor screen. And the keyboard. My desk chair. Mmmm, got a towel?
Dang! Now i needa MOP!
I’m sure Geek Squad has had to deal with service issues such as yours.
Next time be prepared.
http://www.protectcovers.com/
Ready around the clock! Ha ha!
The cover were probably designed to protect computers from children. They never realized they could be used to prevent children.
I love children. OTHER people’s children. LOL
So your either an uncle or a pedophile.
I’m going to go with Reynolds has a screw lose, has a hot wife when the temp is cold and seems to have a thing for children that kill.
The dozens is an element of the African American oral tradition in which two competitors, usually males, go head-to-head in a improvised competition of often good-natured, ribald trash talk. They take turns insulting—cracking, West Coast dissin'”, or ranking on—one another, their adversary’s mother or other family member until one of them has no comeback. This is called playing the dozens or doin’ the dozens, and sometimes dirty dozens, The dozens is a contest of personal power—of wit, self-control, verbal ability, mental agility and mental toughness. Each putdown, each “snap”, ups the ante. Defeat can be humiliating; but a skilled contender, win or lose, may gain respect.
The dozens can be a harmless game, or, if tempers flare, a prelude to violence. While the competition, on its face, is usually light-hearted, smiles sometimes mask real tensions. But in its purest form, the dozens is part of an African-American custom of verbal sparring, of woofin’ and signifyin’, intended to defuse conflict nonviolently, descended from an oral tradition rooted in traditional West African cultures.
(from wikipedia)
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Your mother’s so fat she’s listed in “Jane’s Fighting Ships”.
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FM reply: Please, no more of this.
Yo momma so fat, she was discovered by NASA!
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FM reply: Please, no more of this.