Just, wow. (OK, this has been in the wild for weeks, but we’ve been buried under snow up here and this is the first time I’ve watched it.  I think Tufte would approve.) The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Something between recession and depression might better serve to describe the relentlessly worsening pickle we’re in, and perhaps convey its urgency without igniting widespread panic. Addressing the appellative problem, that estimable pair Jay and David Levy have dusted off a label they’ve pinned on earlier serious setbacks, calling the current state of the economy a "Contained Depression." [1] Maybe it’s just because they’re getting paid and I’m not, but I love to see mainstream scribes squirm.  Propaganda often becomes educational when it starts breaking down.  This piece asserts the meme that "depression" has been overexposed in the news for a…
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One word: waste My heart swells with pride at the thought of the courage and brilliant achievement that went into making that self-licking ice cream cone work at all (click on the pic for the Osprey’s Wikipedia article).  I wouldn’t want to minimize the trickle-down effect from all the research, either.  To a large extent the whole microcomputer revolution was a direct spinoff from my own father’s efforts between 1969 and 1978 to get some onboard processing stuffed into the AIM-7, but at least that bird was arguably useful.  This latest raptor looks to be vulnerable to air defense systems…
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“We’re going to take a commercial break and get them out of the way, so that when something really substandard is happening, we don’t have to interrupt them.” – CNBC’s Mark Haines (right at the end of the YouTube) following the inadvertent release to a national audience of this Ron Paul summary of the historical basis for the present financial crisis.

It’s not often that I agree with the NAHB. [National Association of Home Builders] However, when I read  that they felt that financing the president’s health care initiative by reducing the value of mortgage interest and RE tax deductions could be counterproductive, I thought they had a point: WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Joe Robson, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), today issued the following statement on President Obama’s proposal to reduce the value of the mortgage interest and real estate tax deductions for home buyers and home owners in order to pay for an expanded health care initiative: “With the…
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It’s Friday, and it looks like misery loves company.  China, like the United States, has a glut of vacant commercial property, and now that the Olympics are over, it looks like this could be a drag on their banks:

Wednesday’s auction also alleviates analysts’ fears that massive U.S. borrowing would deter foreign buyers from increasing their holdings in U.S. government securities. [1] Wednesday’s headline reasured with "Foreign Central Banks Snap Up Treasuries," [1] but yesterday’s Fed numbers tell a more ambiguous story. This week’s Reuters report [2] posts a marked week-over-week reduction in net buying of Treasury Debt by foreign central banks, although the number is still positive. Partially offsetting this trend was a recovery in the Agency Debt number — cenbanks managed a small net buy after last week’s moderate selloff. Agencies have been just holding their own…
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  A big hat tip to our regular poster Hutch, who sent us a link to this very funny interview conducted by the "Department of GDP" as reported on the Easy Opinion blog: You can spend, or the government will do it for you.  (Setting: a large waiting room in a giant federal building) Desk Clerk: Ticket 363. Is ticket 363 here? Joe: I have number 363. Desk Clerk: (without looking up) Go to cubical 26, through the gate, turn right, left down the corridor, on the right. (Joe finds his way. The water fountain doesn’t work.) Official: (behind desk,…
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I was in agreement with Rick Santelli of CNBC when he lamented that those who pay their mortgages are being saddled with subsidizing those that don’t.  A lot of people were in agreement with Santelli- so many in fact that it brought a response from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke: [Thanks L!] You could punish him by refusing to send the fire dept and then he would learn his lesson, but unfortunately in the process you’d have the entire neighborhood burning down. CNBC’s Michelle Caruso-Cabrera quoted a reader who gave the following response: My neighbor was smoking in bed, his…
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… There is fear on foreign shores that even U.S. agency debt may not be honored and that U.S. Treasury debt itself, when “repoed” as in prior years, may now suffer from counterparty risk. … [1] That was one startling nugget buried deep inside Bill Gross’ monthly commentary.[1] I’m going to go out on a limb (why should today be different?) and assert, as a fellow mustache fancier, that notwithstanding his silly comments about his mother, Gross’ shaving of his lip was done specifically to bring up "haircuts" in a soft non-threatening way.  PIMCO is exposed to risk whether Agency…
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The vast imbalances that have been allowed to build up under the seductive protection of EMU leave German taxpayers facing bail-out liabilities that exceed the cost of reparations after the First World War, in proportional terms. The political ground has not been prepared for this. EMU was foisted on the German people without a referendum, in the face of deep public scepticism and scathing criticisms by the professoriat. This failure to secure a mandate for such a revolutionary undertaking is coming back to haunt them. [1] In a slight change from the poodle in the original, it appears that Mephistopheles…
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Bears could have the upper hand again this week if Wall Street fails to get assurance that major banks can be rescued without being seized by the U.S. government. [1] This is an open thread on any topic, but Igor is especially eager to learn what happened overnight with Citi and Bank of America.  Was there a rescue?  Last week both Wharton [2] and the New York Times [3] called for nationalization, at least sort-of and preferably temporary.  Was this the best course? Igor wouldn’t mind your thoughts on the Oscars either (although he’s still upset he missed the nomination…
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… That raises the question of whether at some point the administration might abandon the remaining ambiguity about their status and declare that it stands full-square behind [Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's] debts. [1] What we are seeing now is a huge dilemma for Treasury. As soon as they say that the government guarantee on GSE Agency Debt, the senior bonds issued by enterprises like already semi-nationalized Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, is "explicit" then the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will have to acknowledge the US National Debt is about twice as big [2] as the…
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The economy is a mess, and there’s been a lot of finger pointing as to who caused the problem.  Greed, lenders, speculators, the list goes on and on.  Paul Kedrosky of The Street has a persuasive argument as to who is to blame: [T]he housing market in the U.S. is so screwed up is that government has for decades been using housing as a misguided social engineering experiment. There is a lethally romanticized vision of home ownership in this country, one that says that right after flag and country, comes a 2,200 square-foot house with a yard. It’s not true,…
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