I’ve been sharing a lot of these posts (along with my oh-so-witty commentary) through my Google Reader feed (why haven’t you subscribed yet?), but a recent question posed to me by Lester about what has been going on in Wall Street has inspired me to make this — a list of blog posts/news articles/comics/commentary from the past week and a half about the chaos going down in the financial world:
The Nation’s Financial Industry Gripped by Fear – Not a pleasant article to come to work first thing in the morning on Monday to read, but a good summary of what happened that weekend — aka the fall of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, two of the oldest investment banks on Wall Street.
"Things change a lot in this business." – Megan McArdle waxes philosophical about her first post-MBA interviews with investment banks.
A New Beginning – Greg Mankiw on Intro to Economics enrollment: "I would like to thank all my friends on Wall Street for doing so much to spark interest in economic issues. You have gone beyond the call of duty, and your timing could not have been better."
Top Five Lehman Brothers souvenirs to grab on your way out: Funny and irreverent — especially this "must have": "Operating principles cube – A must-have desk accessory with helpful pieces of advice and guidance. Includes top Lehman operating principle: Demonstrating smart risk management"
"Smart investors should buy this stock": Hilarious (that is, unless you actually owned Merrill/Lehman/AIG stock) coverage of very poor investment advice provided by some of the world’s largest and most well-regarded financial magazines.
Ok, Raise Your Hand if you’re completed $&%^$! – Owned
Too Few Regulations? No, Just Ineffective Ones – Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolutions gives his take on what went wrong. Short answer: no political party is to blame, as the problems started years ago, and rested not in the amount of regulation, but in the type of regulation that took place.
"My Wealth will go on": Sinfest at it’s best
The Financial Crisis, LOLCat edition – Answering the very important question, how would LOLCats explain how the financial crisis went down? "Bank: OH NOES! WE WERE COUNTIN ON UR PAYIN US"
How Wall Street’s woes will hurt the next President – Megan McArdle points out that the cost of these bailouts means that the next President won’t be able to increase spending or cut taxes as much as they’d like.
Foresight? – "Thanks goodness we bailed out Bear Stearns back in March if we hadn’t we might have lost Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and who knows what else. Oh wait…"
The US credit rating under fire? – "Scary to think that two committees of eight or so underpaid analysts at S&P and Moody’s could destroy the world’s economy with a penstroke."
US Treasury yield drops to basically 0 – Translation: putting all of your money under your mattress might start to make sense soon…
Megan McArdle – explains that there is nothing Bush or Clinton or anyone probably could have reasonably done to avert this.
How the two candidates are responding to this crisis: Not very well, e.g.: "JOHN MCCAIN’s message: We’re in this mess because a bunch of Wall Street hot shots got us into it, but they won’t dare to pull that stuff when I’m in the White House, because I survived five years in a POW camp."
Blocking short-selling is stupid – Blocking short-selling is stupid
Where do we go from here? – David Brooks: "It all sounds great, like buying a house with no money down…"
Glass-Steagall’s repeal is not to blame: So, no, you can’t blame the Clinton administration.
The New "Business" Strategy? – Ay caramba
The End of the Independent Investment Bank – Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the “two last men standing,” ideologically throw in the towel and become fully regulated banks
What should we do? – Calculated Risk makes a calculation on what can/should be done. Their best plan sounds like a long shot to me.
Liquidity trap? – Paul Krugman educates us on what the Fed traditionally does, and why he thinks the Fed is powerless now. Tyler Cowen has a different take.
Guest post on Freakonomics blog explains the whole thing
