Wonk Watch

Brad DeLong Took the day off. Paul Krugman Took the day off. Barry Ritholtz Nothing of especial wonkiness but did link to this above-average what-caused-the-collapse chart that made it into his book. Felix Salmon Thanks to all these light-blogging days from the others, Wonk Watch is quickly becoming Salmon Seer. When he wasn't busy reacting to a TBM story on RSS feeds , he was calling for the end of the SEC, offering a mea culpa on a derivative oversight, and trying to sort out how a "pre-borrow" differs from a naked short sell (commonly defined as borrowing stock you don't have to sell it, hoping to make money if it falls in price). We'll let Salmon dewonkify: On the day that you short a stock, you don't need to borrow it, you just need to locate it. That means looking it up on an "easy to borrow" list, or phoning up a dealer and asking for a locate. Once you've got a locate, you can then go ahead and put in your sell order, even if you haven't actually borrowed the ... (link)