It's The Economy, Stupid
Monday, February 16, 2009
If I would have paid attention at Grand Valley State to my Econ classes, I would have understood what is going on in Washington.
But I had...other priorities. Or something like that.
Anyway, I give credit to Mike over at Mike's Neighborhood and Mr. Furious over at the like-named blog for informing me, shedding light on the disaster, and, most importantly, showing me that' not only being handled poorly, but being handled in such as way as to benefit a small cadre of insiders.
I know there are a variety of opinions out there about the economic crisis and its mismanagement, but for me, Mike has made it clear, and I think he does a great job, at least among the little network of readers and blogs around, um, this particular keg, of putting all of this in terms that someone with my general lack of understanding can understand.
Go read the following posts on these blogs, and then, as importantly, go visit the links in the comments sections for more and deeper links.
Mike's Bad Bank: Bad Policy, Bad Economics, Bad IDea, Bad News
Mr. F's FAIL
Mike's Scare Tactics: They're Not Just For Republicans Anymore
Mr. F's Not Getting It (read: Obama is not getting it, not that Mr. F doesn't get it...)
Mike's The Insider, followed shortly by his The Insiders(part of a fantastic Moyers interview)
Mr. F's Lecture Hall (follow the links therein)
Mike's post on Pelosi and Frank's complicity
Mike's snark-filled post Let's Just Establish a 4th Branch of Government
Mike then schooled me on a glib remark I made about my own ignorance and acceptance of whatever Obama says as good, and sent me to 4 other places I encourage you to check out too: Naked Capitalism, Jesse's Cafe' Americain, The Big Picture, and The Cunning Realist.
I only offer these various links because they are how I finally came to understand the nature of the crisis and what is wrong with the response so far. Maybe soon I'll be smart enough to offer a different solution. Right now, I am questioning the response as serving too narrow an agenda.
Have at it, and if you see other links or takes on all of this that I or we am missing...you knw where to put them (in the comments section, of course!).
8 comments:
I'm flattered, Smitty.
(No sarcasm; for real.)
Anyway, I think you hit on the key point: not that I, or Furious, or any of our commenters know everything (or anything) that's going on.
(Odds are, we don't!)
But there are a lot of interesting and informed opinions out there . . . from some really smart people, like Yves at Naked Capitalism, or Barry Ritholz.
Those links are key. Thanks for spreading the word.
Smitty, I think your comments have been intelligent and you certainly have a good understanding as to how government works. IMO, you were correct a few months back when you observed how economics, as with any other social science, is not set in stone and subject to many widely divegent theories.
Anyway, I am going to plug another good econ blog, Truth on the Market.
Well thanks for the vote of confidence, steves. I do get some of government, especially the politics-as-policy stuff given my profession. But the economics stuff evades me quite often and I am prone to oversimplify it, and boil it down into elements that it isn't. Given that, I appreciate Mike's diligence on this issue and I wanted to give him the nod for following it in such as way as to make me see it in a different light.
I will check out that link steves. I trust your ideas here as much as anyone else's.
Wait... ok, so NOW is it okay for me to start feeling a little let down? Apparently the inauguration was too soon...
so NOW is it okay for me to start feeling a little let down
Yeah, you totally jumped the gun. We all had to come down off of our high while you were totally sober. The sober guy always kills the buzz, but usually ends up being right.
Meh.
Meh what?
I sure as hell don't really know what's going on. The larger point is I'm not so sure any of these supposed "experts" do either...
I'm actually overdue for another post on all of this stuff that will actually be constructed more out of my opinions and less of links and plagiarism.
(and yes, I'm flattered as well)
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