Economic (and financial scandal) links

Dec 20, 2008 16:36

The original Thanksgiving as illustrating the failure of communal property. Plymouth colony only avoided the threat of starvation when it privatised land.

Guns are hard to get legally in India, fairly easy on the black market.

Defending the viability of newspapers as news-papers.

Graphing how US employment has become less volatile over the decades.

Spain is having unemployment problems, particularly among recent immigrants.

The EU emissions trading scheme has brought expense and windfall gains but not a lot of environmental benefit. Lots of links on the Oz emissions trading scheme (a rather bigger economic deal than people may realise) and reactions.

NZ house prices are off their peak but high while sale volumes have dropped.

Big differences in falls in US housing prices from peak by city. How to expand housing to the poor and improve housing affordability: and subsidizing lending does neither.

The proposed New York State budget is not exactly stimulatory.

Costs of financial sector support for various developed economies. Putting the scale of the US bailout in historical perspective.

Winners and losers from the massive drop in the price of oil. Starting with Iran and moving around the Muslim states. Explaining the ins and outs of rising and falling oil prices.

The proposed auto bailout dies in the US Senate, but may get resurrected by executive action. The first person elected to US Congress in his first election as an openly gay man explains why he is against the auto bailout: Our United States Congress of lawyers, doctors, diplomats, retired military officers and career politicians -- along with their staffs of intelligent young political science majors and MBAs -- now finds itself poring over "business plans" submitted this week by Ford, GM and Chrysler. People who have never before in their lives seen -- no less implemented -- a business plan are now trying to decide if these companies will succeed by means of a "capital infusion" with various imposed preconditions and negotiate what we taxpayers (investors) should be getting for our money. Something is wrong with this picture. Looking at what went wrong as GM slides into bankruptcy.

A major arrest on Wall St: Bernard L. Madoff, a former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market and a force in Wall Street trading for nearly 50 years, was arrested by federal agents Thursday, a day after his sons turned him in for running what they said their father called "a giant Ponzi scheme."
The Securities and Exchange Commission, in a civil complaint, said it was an ongoing $50 billion swindle, and asked a judge to seize the firm and its assets. His fund had a single auditor. Overburdened regulators failed to inspect his businesses. His and other cases have been exposed by the credit crunch. The collapse could have quite an effect. People at one of his clubs take stock of what they appear to have lost. More. A lot of activist bodies are also going to lose money. His political contributions list. More. His Muckety (connections) profile.

credit crisis, economics, housing, links, scandal, property, policy

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