Tuesday’s Stuff Worth Reading

Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 8/25/09 @ 12:37 am - Filed Under Uncategorized

In today’s “you can’t make this stuff up” edition, the same organization that is largely responsible for the current financial crisis is now proclaiming their actions have saved the world - I’m speaking of the Federal Reserve Bank and you should read Mish’s post in its entirety:

Both Greenspan and Bernanke have fostered an environment that threw money at every problem. The worldwide credit boom and housing bubbles were a direct result of Central Bank policies. Thus, giving credit to Bernanke is like giving credit to a doctor for amputating a cancerous limb after mistakenly cutting off three perfectly healthy limbs.
[...]
MSNBC: With the facts he (treasury secretary Henry Paulson) knew at the time, was it (the $750 Billion bank bailout) the right call?

Warren: (struggling to be polite) “You know, let me say it this way. The question about whether or not the world as we know it has ended, depends on what you think the world is as we know it. If you think the world as we know it, are a handful of huge financial institutions, the dinosaurs that roamed the earth, then you’re right. They are not going to exist without huge infusions of government money. On the other hand if what you really believe is that our economy and our world is 115 million American households you start to see it very differently. And you say, you know if the dinosaurs are gone there are still a lot of stuff to be done.

A-fricken-men…
Krugman on our current state of economic purgatory (hint: this relates to the city’s motives moving forward with office space at The Harrison - more on that later):

“We’ve got a problem with terminology because we usually say either the economy is in recession or the economy is recovering. Either you’re in hell, or you’re in heaven. And the trouble is we’re actually in purgatory. We’re actually in a situation almost for sure GDP is growing; almost for sure the business cycle leading committee will eventually decide that the recession ended this summer. But almost surely also we’re still losing jobs. The unemployment rate is going to continue to rise. So we’re in that infamous jobless recovery state.”