Auros ([info]auros) wrote,
@ 2009-03-06 23:49:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend  Next Entry
Current mood: incredulous

Two extremely good articles on different aspects of the crisis.
Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball and Liar's Poker) has a piece on Iceland in Vanity Fair, and Amartya Sen (the Bengali expert on development economics and Nobelist) has a piece in the NY Review of Books on the future of capitalism.

The Iceland one is kind of mind-boggling. What's most shocking to me is the degree of stupidity among the international banks that made the loans that enabled the Icelandic banks (and bankers) to spiral out of control. It's like the NINJA loans into the subprime sector, but on the scale of corporate leveraged buyouts and the GDP of small countries (including Iceland).


(Read 9 comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]auros
2009-03-07 10:22 pm UTC (link)
Probably the most comprehensive layman-targeted piece about healthcare policy available is the one Krugman and Wells wrote in the NY Review of Books three years ago: The Health Care Crisis and What to Do About It.

Slate's Tim Noah also did a couple pieces on the type of plan that the Dems are currently advancing: The Edwards plan included a "trojan horse" that offered a smooth path towards full nationalization; Obama's plan in the campaign was also pretty good (and is very similar, in its broad outlines, including the public/private competition aspect), but Dems in Congress may have to force him to accept the "mandate" rule that he rejected during the campaign. (Fortunately, Ted Kennedy and Max Baucus are both in favor of a mandate. If Hillary were still in the Senate she would also be a powerful voice on the right side of that issue.)

Edited at 2009-03-07 10:23 pm UTC

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Read 9 comments) - (Post a new comment)

Create an Account
Forgot your login or password?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…