Category: Games

Isn't it funny how they call them the "toxic assets"?  OK, a lot of them aren't worth very much.  But would it not be better to speak of the "toxic liabilities"?  This may sound like a semantic point, but the toxic assets terminology breeds the idea that the mere creation of a "bad bank," built from these assets, will boost the financial system.  It won't.

Overpaying for the toxic assets is another matter entirely.  Yves Smith, by the way, has a good critique of current bank aid proposals and of course Paul Krugman has been making related arguments.  The frightening thing is that many brilliant people — such as those on the Obama team — think this is the best we can do, all constraints taken into account.  We'll see, as they say.

The other development is the proposal to limit executive pay to $500,000 for any bank taking "large amounts" of bailout funds; maybe that is the secret plan for keeping the bailout plan affordable.  The drawback is that it discourages relatively healthy banks from using the funds to buy out the sick banks which, although it sounds inappropriate, is actually one of the better chances for making the program work.

I thought of the economic crisis when I read this from Vladimir Kramnik (discussing his recent match with Anand, which he lost):

Whoops:

Steven Chu, the Nobel laureate scientist who is President-elect Obama’s choice to be energy secretary, said in testimony prepared for his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday that high oil prices were a threat to the economy, backing away slightly from statements made in his last job, as director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, that gasoline prices should be higher.

Here is the story.  Technically speaking, all of his words are correct and do not contradict each other.  Still, if he can't get appointed for favoring higher gas prices, and in a honeymoon period at that…well…you see where this is headed.

Sadly typepad is slow with some comments, I believe due to a switch of platforms (you’ll notice some funny formatting and spacing in some posts as well; our apologies).  Some of the Krugman-Bush photo captions are still not up but I wanted to pass along a few of my not-yet-published favorites.

Can you show me that ‘push on a string” trick again?

Paul, I did everything I could to make that book of yours,
The Return of Depression Economics, a bestseller.

Boy, did we put one over on those gullible Americans

“I’m glad this is almost over, he must not understand what I
said”

“They think we actually believe the $hit we say; pretty
funny, huh?”

My favorite is: “So Paul, ever been to Cuba before?”

If you think you can beat these, please let further suggestions in the comments on this post.