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Robert Samuelson says it turns out our modern economics is bankrupt.
… A hallmark of the crisis has been the stark contrast between the “real economy” of production and jobs and the tumultuous financial markets of stocks, bonds, banks, money funds and the like. Even with the 60 percent drop in housing construction since early 2006, the real economy has so far suffered only modest setbacks. Yes, there are 605,000 fewer payroll jobs than there were in December; still, 137.5 million jobs remain. Meanwhile, financial markets verge on hysteria. The question is whether this hysteria will drive the real economy into a deep recession or worse — and what we can do to prevent that. …
And Supply and Demand Blog doubts financial problems will sink the rest of the economy.
… The weak correlation between asset prices and non-financial sector performance and the strong profitability of today’s non-financial capital are two good reasons to scoff at the idea that the non-financial sector will collapse because of the recent events on Wall Street, and even better reasons to scoff at the Bernanke-Paulson-Bush idea that a massive bailout of financial firms is the key to avoiding a non-financial collapse. Wall Street’s woes are and will be largely limited to Wall Street. The Bush administration should not use the power of the IRS to force the rest of us to board Wall Street’s sinking ship. …
Mark Steyn returns for interviews at Hugh Hewitt. Dean Barnett does the honors.
DB: Now Mark Steyn, what percentage of the United States Senate do you think knows what a credit default swap is?
MS: I would imagine it’s a very, very small number. One of the amusing things, well, it isn’t amusing, really, it’s tragic in a way, but one of the strange things about this is that whenever anything goes wrong in the economy, the fault is always blamed on capitalism, red in tooth and claw. And in this case, both candidates tend to blame greed, untrammeled greed. Well, greed is writ in the human heart and is embedded in our DNA, and has been since the beginning of time. So clearly, greed itself is not the factor, and in most cases, if you actually eliminate the lame-o class warfare thing, it turns out, as in this case, to derive from some previous round of government regulation and its unintended consequences. So now we’ll pile, we’ll have corrective government regulation to correct the last sort of government regulation, and that in turn will have another lot of unintended consequences. To be honest, I would rather take a flyer on a new depression. …
DB: Actually, now it’s old news, but since you bring up the sniffers at Sarah Palin, have you ever seen anything like that Charlie Gibson interview, who was seemingly channeling a metrosexual schoolmarm the way he was looking over his glasses with such fury at Sarah Palin?
MS: Yeah, I know, and I don’t, I just don’t get it. I mean, I don’t understand why he thinks he’s, that’s in his interest. You know, you and I make our living from talking and giving opinions, and very often, as in this whole sub-prime business, Lehman Brothers, on stuff we know nothing about. Let’s face it, that’s what we do. If it wasn’t Lehman Brothers in the news, and there was instead a coup in Azerbaijan, as professional commentators, we would be within three minutes instant experts on Azerbaijan and the coup situation. That’s what pundits do. They chatter about stuff all day long. And I think it behooves us to have a respect for people who actually run things and do things like the Governor of Alaska. And why Charlie Gibson thinks he would come out, some worthless twit who reads a teleprompter for a living, would come off looking good being condescending to a woman who runs a state, I’ve no idea. …
More on financial affirmative action from American Spectator.
When the history of the Great Economic Meltdown of 2008 is written, in-your-face shakedown groups like the Greenlining Institute will be held to account.
Greenlining, headquartered in Berkeley, California (where else?), is a left-wing pressure group that threatens nasty public relations campaigns against lenders that refuse to kneel before its radical economic agenda. Its principal goal is to push politicians and the business community to facilitate “community reinvestment” in low-income and minority neighborhoods.
The Greenlining name is a play on the unlawful practice of “redlining.” That’s when financial institutions designate areas, typically those with a high concentration of racial minorities, as bad risks for home and commercial loans. The Institute wants banks to give a green light to loans in these areas instead.
Recently profiled by John Gizzi, Greenlining uses carrot-and-stick tactics to blackmail public agencies, banks, and philanthropists to achieve its objectives. The Institute brags it has threatened banks into making more than $2.4 trillion in loans in low-income communities.
Was this a good idea? …
Peter Wehner has a good summary of the race.
… 5. The truth is that Senator McCain, facing a considerable uphill struggle, has made the race closer than it ought to be, given all the advantages Democrats have this year. And one thing this campaign has taught us is that a new dynamic can be injected in the blink of an eye. We still have five weeks before the election. But then again, we only have five weeks to go before the election. And the task Senator McCain faces is to alter, in some fundamental way, the trajectory of the race. Friday’s debate certainly didn’t do that; if anything, his job is now harder.
John McCain has faced far more difficult challenges in his life than he does now. But politically speaking, the race, never an easy one, looks considerably more difficult. Senator McCain can still prevail, but at this point, he may need an assist from outside events or from Barack Obama. And one thing Senator Obama has shown is that, for whatever flaws he has, he doesn’t make many glaring, stupid, and unforced errors. He’s hard to knock off stride. Obama and his team, while certainly not flawless, have run a very impressive campaign for 20 months. To hope they’ll badly slip up in the last five weeks is asking for a lot. As we’ve seen this year, a lot can happen, including in a short period of time. But for McCain it needs to happen, and soon. …
P.J. O’Rourke writes about coming down with cancer.
… I have, of all the inglorious things, a malignant hemorrhoid. What color bracelet does one wear for that? And where does one wear it? And what slogan is apropos? Perhaps that slogan can be sewn in needlepoint around the ruffle on a cover for my embarrassing little doughnut buttocks pillow.
Furthermore, I am a logical, sensible, pragmatic Republican, and my diagnosis came just weeks after Teddy Kennedy’s. That he should have cancer of the brain, and I should have cancer of the ass … well, I’ll say a rosary for him and hope he has a laugh at me. After all, what would I do, ask God for a more dignified cancer? Pancreatic? Liver? Lung? …
Pickerhead wonders if we are going to keep building bigger and bigger until one leans over too far, and fails to right itself.