in which I reveal my apocalyptic leanings (also: go Elizabeth Warren)
I have been a fan of Elizabeth Warren since reading The Two-Income Trap, which significantly changed the way I thought about practical economics. In brief: if everyone's income goes up by a factor of 2, this does not make, say, houses cheaper. Because now everyone can bid up the prices of houses to two times what they could before, housing prices will also go up by about that much. Of course I did learn this in first-year economics supply and demand, but this was when-- okay, fine, I am slow-- I really got that yes, this occurs in non-textbook situations, and a similar application to the lax-credit market of the last five years (guess what-- if everyone regardless of income can get a mortgage loan of $500k, houses will cost at least $500k!) helped us to keep our head about it. I am still a fan of hers based on her TARP COP remarks. Transparency in disbursing government money! Oh, my heart.
I promise to shut up after this, but let me just say once: I strongly believe things in the financial system (and not just the US's) are Very Bad, people don't realize how bad they are, and things are just going to get worse. Probably much worse. I'm talking about Depression-era worse; I don't think we have staved off a depression, at all, and have probably made things worse. (Note I am not being partisan here; I don't think this is Obama's fault, or Bush's. I do think both of them did/are doing stupid things, but I'm not convinced any other politician would have done much better.)
My main sources of gloom-and-doom apocalyptic-ness are Mish and Karl Denninger-- the latter is kind of crazy, but then again look at his predictions for 2008 (scroll down to the bullets)... he might just be crazy like a fox.
I'll shut up now and go back to books. You can take all this with a large lump of salt, of course (and I realize I do look silly given this morning's news/stock market surge); I certainly don't claim to have a particularly high batting average with this stuff. Still. Save. Don't take on any more debt than you have to. Don't take your job for granted. Have a backup plan. Always good ideas, but I think now more than usual. I would add, don't invest in stocks right now; my dad begs to respectfully disagree.
I promise to shut up after this, but let me just say once: I strongly believe things in the financial system (and not just the US's) are Very Bad, people don't realize how bad they are, and things are just going to get worse. Probably much worse. I'm talking about Depression-era worse; I don't think we have staved off a depression, at all, and have probably made things worse. (Note I am not being partisan here; I don't think this is Obama's fault, or Bush's. I do think both of them did/are doing stupid things, but I'm not convinced any other politician would have done much better.)
My main sources of gloom-and-doom apocalyptic-ness are Mish and Karl Denninger-- the latter is kind of crazy, but then again look at his predictions for 2008 (scroll down to the bullets)... he might just be crazy like a fox.
I'll shut up now and go back to books. You can take all this with a large lump of salt, of course (and I realize I do look silly given this morning's news/stock market surge); I certainly don't claim to have a particularly high batting average with this stuff. Still. Save. Don't take on any more debt than you have to. Don't take your job for granted. Have a backup plan. Always good ideas, but I think now more than usual. I would add, don't invest in stocks right now; my dad begs to respectfully disagree.