Exchange of the Day

Me: For whose sake have you forsaken me, for fuck's sake?

Grizzled Man: I'd forsake you for any man's sake. I like sake.

Luigi!

"Plan B" (to fix the economy)

Here's Hoping

"My Vacation with John McCain"

Casey Needs to Take a Mulligan

In the black corner, wearing nothing but a smile, "An Economy You Can Bank On." In the red corner, wearing an 800-pound-gorilla suit, "Rescuing Our Jobs And Savings: What G7/8 Leaders Can Do To Solve The Global Credit Crisis."

It's Over 9,000!

"What?! Nine thousand!" Either standards have gone the way of the economy, or Paul Krugman's blog editor is one refined and culturally literate individual.

What Do You Think? -- Crispin on the Global Economy

"SE Asian memo to Wall St"

A Defense of a Paulson-esque Plan that I Hadn't Come Across

A Wall Street friend of mine made the following point: one advantage of a government purchase of toxic mortgage-backed securities over an equity infusion (which apparently most economists support) is that the government can hold these assets to maturity without having to worry about being margin called. This matters because banks aren't the only entities holding lots of crumbling paper; hedge funds and other non-bailed-out institutions are likely to make forced sales of MBS, further driving down their value. Consequently, banks would require more and more capital from the government in order to stay afloat -- probably more than the government would initially overpay if it bought MBS and then received an equity "true-up." My friend argues that the absence of this idea from mainstream discourse stems from economists' underappreciation of the interconnectedness of the many players and games that caused the financial crisis. Contagion is a serious concern; perhaps an equity infusion is a mere treatment, whereas a Paulson-esque plan constitutes a quarantine.

UPDATE: this is not to suggest that my friend or I believe that a Paulson-esque plan is overall better than an equity infusion, just that the above reasoning may be part of the method to the madness.

What Do You Think? -- Feshbach on Russia

"Behind the Bluster, Russia Is Collapsing"

Thinking in Tongues

"Barracuda" (on Sarah Palin's lifelong if-you-can't-be-them-beat-them response to intellectual elites)

Looking Down on the Earth

"Earth From Above comes to NYC"

The Long History of Presidential Campaign Mudslinging

"5 Presidential Elections Even Dumber Than This One (Somehow)"

You Can Imagine Where It Goes From Here

"Modern Financial Systemic Risk: A Primer"

What Do You Think? -- Diamond on Agriculture

"The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race"

Department of the Prescient

"The Ends of the World as We Know Them"

Metaspeaking

"American Accent Undergoing Great Vowel Shift"

Our Elephantine Cruelty

"An Elephant Crackup?"