links

[cellio]

It looks like Congress is on the verge of passing the bailout bill. Sigh. I feel like I want to say more about that, but it's not coming. In the meantime, this background explanation from David Director Friedman seems sound to me.

To maybe bring some cheer in the wake of that, it's clean-out-the-browser-tabs day:

The sanctuary in the desert, modernized by hobbitblue:
You can go North, South, East or West
>N
There is a table of bread here
>Eat bread
You are not hungry, trust me.
[...]

The great schlep -- an organized campaign to send kids to Florida to convince their grandparents to vote for Obama. Or, at least, they'll visit. :-) Link from browngirl and mamadeb.

Duckling scam from zachkessin.

Q: How many children of a dysfunctional family does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Your brother would know.
Passed on by siderea.

Sarah Palin Disney (video) forwarded by tangerinpenguin made me laugh.

hrj made mock sushi.

I want this lamp (from nancylebov).

I found this video touching, right before Rosh Hashana (it has no religious content). Forwarded by 530nm330hz.

And finally, sing to your pooky is a thoughtful entry from scaharp.

Comments

[sui66iy.livejournal.com]

Friedman's account is not wrong, but I don't think it's complete. If you add up all the bad mortgages, they don't come anywhere near the $700bn bailout number (which itself may be very conservative). The mortgages are just where the problem starts. The reason the bailout is so big is because of leverage: many Wall Street firms are holding leveraged investments at a ratio of something like 30:1, that are ultimately backed by the bad mortgages. That's why people are complaining about a lack of regulation; there used to be a lot more oversight of how banks could behave. This post (http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/09/economic_disasters_and_stupid.php) discusses some of how the leverage, the bad mortgages, the "insurance", and the credit rating systems interacted to make this all possible. The post rants a bit at the end about deregulation, and I don't necessarily disagree (though the comments on the post rightly point out the deregulation was a very bipartisan effort). That said, I'm deeply concerned that the bailout will create a moral hazard making this kind of behavior more likely in the future. We may not be able to let these large firms "fail", but we certainly should make sure that the shareholders and the executives are taken to the cleaners.

[byronhaverford.livejournal.com]

In all the millions of people posting to the internet, there is bound to be someone who precisely shares my views on a topic, and expresses them well. Nevertheless, it is heartening to actually see it. Thank you, Mr. Higgins.