Tag: market

The Sources of the Meltdown

Few things are simplex, most are complex – and when it comes to the current financial meltdown, the failures go beyond complex to multiplex.

Simplex, Complex, Multiplex

Few things are simplex, most are complex – and when it comes to the current financial meltdown, the failures go beyond complex to multiplex. No depression coming, but a serious recession – here’s a lecture that enumerates the multiple sources of the multiplex stall we are in.

H/T LittleOldLady at Little Green Footballs

* My wife has a quibble with the statement on underwriting standards – she says in the bigger institutions the underwriting standards were there, but were too often over-ridden by Regional Managers to hit volumes. If regulators don’t pay attention to who can over ride an Underwriter’s “NO way in Hell!” as well as the securities risk managers, then we will just be back here in a few decades.

Crisis, and how to Overcome it

While the markets tumble Barack Obama is hob-knobbing with Celebrities and High Rollers in Hollywood.:

The polls are one thing, but it sounds like Barack Obama might make progress in other ways during two ultra-rich Beverly Hills fund-raisers Tuesday. According to Politico, the events could raise more than $9 million, which, if it happens, would be a one-day record.

More also at Jammie Wearing Fool.

It is also noteworthy that Obama made a remark about the crisis:

“Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections; have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.”

If things got “shredded” then the Democrat-controlled senate Anti-trust Competition and Consumer Rights Sub Committee helped, and Barack’s running mate, Senator Joe Biden, was a member of that committee.

Energy is Still the Topic of the Day

While it’s topical now, it won’t be when the pressures let up. The market driven economy will see that they do, for a short period anyway. The pressing need for more energy won’t end soon as demonstrated in article after article here. The urgency around energy might abate, the import won’t as it hasn’t in the three decades since the first oil embargo.

While the G-8 is meeting over the energy-driven food crisis now, T. Boone Pickens has proposed a plan for energy in the US that makes a great deal of sense. Hybrids sound nice at first glance, however they become problematic in twenty years as we deal with all of those dead batteries. They also cost a great deal, don’t provide the range and performance that the public wants, and they really live on subsidies now. In business you find that processes people adapt are those which are simple, and that are easier than what they are doing now.

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