newyorker.com - 3/14/2009
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In the debate about how to deal with our banking crisis, pundits have made frequent reference to a few key historical episodes, using them as examples of good or bad policy, and extrapolating from them to tell policymakers what they should do today. The experience that’s referred to most often ...
The Balance Sheet: Online Only: The New Yorker
newyorker.com 11/3/2008 — The Nikkei Index has rallied sharply this week (although it was down today). But it’s still near its twenty-five-year low, and, in nominal terms, its value is less than a fourth of what it was in 1989, at the peak of Japan’s stock-market bubble. In ...
The Balance Sheet: Online Only: The New Yorker
newyorker.com 10/28/2008 — A couple of weeks ago, economist Brad DeLong suggested (at least semi-seriously, I think) that now might be a good time to “take the Social Security Trust Fund balance out of Treasuries and move it into equities.” As he put it, “Buy low, sell high ...
The Balance Sheet: Online Only: The New Yorker
newyorker.com 10/21/2008 — One of the peculiarities of the U.S. budget process is that we don’t distinguish between “expenditures” that are actually long-term investments, often with high returns for the economy as a whole, and expenditures that are consumption in the ...
The Balance Sheet: Online Only: The New Yorker
newyorker.com 10/20/2008 — Lefty Rosenthal—the antihero of Nick Pileggi’s “Casino” and the model for Robert De Niro’s character in the movie of the same name—died a few days ago, which I learned thanks to a great obituary notice (is that a contradiction in terms?) by Bruce ...
The Balance Sheet: Online Only: The New Yorker
newyorker.com 11/16/2008 — Mortgage financier Freddie Mac, which is now majority-controlled by the federal government, reported a $25.3 billion loss in its most recent quarter, and said it would be asking the government for $14 billion to keep its business going. Understanding ...