The Big Short and Dunning-Kruger Effect Concluded

Hard-working citizens have been forced to dip into their wallets to rescue the very people that destroyed so much of their personal economic futures. The downwardly mobile American electorate has, by and large, an intuitive understanding that they are being royally screwed by the Powers That Be even if they aren’t familiar with the particulars.

The Big Short:The Dunning-Kruger Effect Part IV

While there’s been no shortage of post-mortems on the cause of the Great Recession, the most entertaining has to be the new movie The Big Short, a Golden Globe and Oscar nominee for best film, based on Michael Lewis’s book of the same name… The film follows three sometimes inter-related investment entities as they uncover the massive fraud that had taken over the real estate industry, and their efforts to profit from that knowledge. That a morality tale emerges in the wake of their pursuit of “price discovery,” a traditional goal of the free (unmanipulated) market, is just icing on the cake.

The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress

“By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon, and it will be American”

Bailout: Putting Lipstick On A Pig In A Poke

The way to feed rabbits is to feed hay to horses. A lovely little adage better known as trickle down economics. Unfortunately, it also describes even the modified bailout plan promoted by congressional Democrats, a plan that has no guarantee of ever working nor limits on the eventual cost. Instead of a top down approach,  a bottom up strategy that …

McHoover On Wall Street Meltdown: We’ll Study It

Sarah Palin holding Trig, while Willow and Piper keep mom upright. First, a little context. When our self-proclaimed CEO president, George W. Bush took office the week of January 22, 2001, the Dow Jones Industrial average was 10,659. Yesterday, it closed 50 points under that. Bill Clinton left a budget surplus of over $250 billion. Bush will leave office with …

Wrecking the Economy

Impact of two terms of Bush’s management of the US Economy The Bush Administration today issued a mind boggling record deficit projection of $482 billion for 2009. And that’s not even counting the off-budget estimated $80 billion being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor the cost of the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac and homeowner bailout bill. That’s a yearly deficit of …

McSame’s Economic Policies: That’s Rich

McSame demonstrates he no longer needs his wife to access the internets Frank Rich begins his New York Times Sunday column yesterday by noting what a favor Barack Obama did for his presidential rival, John McSame, by traveling overseas this weekend: THE best thing to happen to John McCain was for the three network anchors to leave him in the …