Archive for the ‘ Capitalism ’ Category
The New York Times reports that pranksters have distributed a faux NYTimes dated a year into the future that describes a liberal utopia. If, like me, you were unlucky enough not to get a copy, there is an accompanying website that mimics the Times’ actual site. Apparently the paper was put together by the Yes [ READ MORE ]
The Wall Street Journal has a brief blog entry on the impact of the economic crisis on America’s wealthy. The basic position is that the general outcry against Wall Street greed is being undermined by an ongoing decline in the share of wealth of the top 1%. (Tears begin to well up.) If the current [ READ MORE ]
I’ve come across two articles this morning that try to turn the Marxist/Socialist tables on the Republicans. The weaker and more obvious of the two is from Hale Stewart on the Huffington Post, who argues that the ongoing bailout is an example of “state or collective ownership and administration of the means of production and [ READ MORE ]
The NYTimes has a short piece that describes an JP Morgan Chase executive’s response to an employee question about when the bailout money will loosen up lending restrictions. The executive replied that they had no immediate intention of loosening the restrictions. Instead, the plan is to use the billions of dollars provided by the taxpayer [ READ MORE ]
As the credit markets’ constipation is supposedly coming unstuck, it seems we’re all supposed to heave a sigh of great relief. But now the NYTimes delivers two stories that may just seize up my system. The first is the return of soft money era levels of campaign donations by private donors, many of whom are [ READ MORE ]
According to the NYTimes, chief executives at the meeting organized by the Partnership for New York City and The Wall Street Journal demonstrated their lack of shame and self-serving greed in the face of a public crisis to which many of them contributed. Just as New York City and State are exploring ways to raise [ READ MORE ]
The NYTimes reports on the ongoing crisis for cities in the current economic crisis. It seems to be the perfect storm that threatens to bring back the cities of the 1980s. “This is the first time for at least two decades that all three major general tax sources — property, income and sales — have all [ READ MORE ]
The NYTimes has an article on the growth of credit-default swaps in municipal and state bonds. The “benefit” of a market in CDSs for cities and states is that it is supposed to introduce financial discipline to government financing and compel weak entities to shore up their financing. Basically, this submits legislation even more effectively [ READ MORE ]
Alan Ehrenhalt at The New Republic argues that for all the media’s focus on the war and gentrification, it has missed the larger story of demographic inversion. The flipside of gentrification of the inner city, he rightly argues, is the movement of poorer and less white residents to the outer limits of cities. He then [ READ MORE ]
As the housing market continues to evaporate, legislators are close to passing a bill that will provide new federal guarantees for mortgages renegotiated to 85% of their original value at fixed rates for 30 years (for primary residences of homeowners who can demonstrate that they have the financial means to assure payments on the renegotiated [ READ MORE ]
The NYTimes has a short article on the tension job uncertainty is generating as Wall Street banks slowly proceed with ’stealth’ layoffs. It’s both hard and easy to be sympathetic…and for the same reason. Wall Street workers are now coming face-to-face with the daily conditions of people at the bottom of the ladder: today you [ READ MORE ]