Here's another article about the disastrous state of the housing market in the U.S., describing what's been going on in Cleveland, Ohio. It's a seriously depressing article, showing just how far downhill things have gone, and just how hard it's going to be to get out of this mess.As early as 2000, a...

by Cheryl Rofer My winter jasmine is blooming, and all sorts of other things are coming up or, if they were green over the winter, perking up. A couple of little cactuses that collapsed into small piles of spines over the winter are back to showing green between the spines, the iris are growing the ...

The runaway inconsistencies of the Labour government’s handling of the economic crisis in Britain are truly terrifying. Last week, they began printing money to buy back debt they themselves have issued, a process I described as like a snake eating its own tail. Technically, this is considered ...

He thinks that Obama is not doing well, but that there is no reason to think that McCain would be doing any better: The Arena - Politico's daily debate with policymakers and opinion shapers: I’ve gotten this question from several of my conservative friends lately. They know that I publicly dec...

He writes: The Big Dither: [A]mong people I talk to there’s a growing sense of frustration, even panic... when it comes to dealing with the banks, the Obama administration is dithering. Policy is stuck in a holding pattern.... [A]dministration officials, usually speaking off the record, float ...

A reader of my blog sent me, for comment, one of those letters that circulate through the Intertubes. This one is sent as “an explanation of the stimulus bill”. I wouldn’t call it that, but it is quite a good exposition of what’s known as the “Treasury View”[1]. I...

Tyler Cowen has a short post which covers a number of themes I’ve been going on about for ages, though never with a fully satisfactory analysis. He starts by pointing to work by Michael Mandel suggesting that much of the measured productivity growth in the US has been bogus (see also Matt Ygle...

Is he really just a one-trick pony? What does he do but grind out speeches? What meat-grinder is running behind him, fed with lists of great words, lists of lofty leftist platitudes? His fans swoon, hearing only heavenly hope, nothing but the sweetest swill. Let me rethink this: “O� could be a t...

The Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) hopes to achieve a monetary union, with a common currency, by 2010. Bloggers from the region, which groups Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, debate the merits of the union and more importantly what name they want for their new curren...

The always-worth-reading Gillian Tett: Time to expose those CDOs: Just how much should a debt vehicle backed by subprime mortgage bonds be worth these days? Two years ago, most banks and insurance companies assumed the answer was close to 100 per cent of face value – or more. Since then, howev...