Warren Buffett gives reasonable, and frankly obvious, advice. Too bad it only applies to people who have enough money saved up (and coming in) that they don’t have to worry about how to survive over the next couple of months.
Hilarious and pointed article at The Onion: the next bubble.
Bad news for the markets is good news for Obama; although I have to say, the more I read about his economic policies, the more I hope that he’s just a really charismatic liar.(And why I wouldn’t have a problem with that as long as he’s not stupid as well is a whole other post.
And speaking about the election and Obama raising taxes on the rich: how can you explain this?
From MR:
The Bush administration, having entered office as social conservatives, leaves office as conservative socialists, proprietors of the most sudden large expansion of the state’s role in the US economy since mobilisation for the second world war.
Oh, and of course: Sensex dips below 10K.
The Ego Chronicles 
Read this. 🙂
Ouch. Pretty depressing. Although, can be countered (to some extent) with a one-line “so you think the markets are stupid when it comes to esoteric financial instruments, and the government ISN’T!!?”, and possibly mentioning that Fanny and Freddy were influenced to give loans to people who couldn’t pay them back because Clinton wanted poor people to be able to own homes.
Oh, right, he mentioned the second bit as part of the “apologetic” argument and promptly dismissed it.
Yeah, Slate has very obvious ‘liberal’ biases, hence take with a pinch of salt.
The Economist has a more balanced article on the subject. The fault lies not just with poor minorities not paying back their loans but also with very lax regulation.
But you have to admit, to argue (like Cato et some others are doing) that govt. intervention is always bad and the markets always knowing what’s best, is being daft.
But whatever. I’m done with ideology. I’m a cynico-surrealist these days. 🙂
LOL. What’s a “cynico’surrealist”?
And yeah, Cato etc. are taking positions that are a little difficult to defend. It’s too bad there aren’t all that many voices of reason out there. Do you read Marginal Revolution?
I’m cynical and I like to smoke pot. 😀
I’m not a regular MR reader, but I do check it out once in a while.
Oh,right. 🙂
By the way, Richard Posner agrees with me on the 2nd comment, in far more complicated language:
“The answer lies in what conservative economists used to call the “Nirvana fallacy.” This is the idea that any failure of the economy to attain optimality is a “market failure” that warrants government intervention.Conservative economists pointed out that the proper comparison is never between the operations of the actual market and an unattainable theoretical perfection, but between market-directed and government-directed or -regulated allocations of resources in particular economic settings.”
Makes sense, doesn’t it?
But public policy is rarely a zero sum game. Both the invisible hand and the paternalistic hand can work together; the presence of one doesn’t necessarily negate the other.
What’s important isn’t ideological fidelity to libertarianism or socialism, but, what works. Sometimes, and there’s data to show this, govt. intervention does make things better.
I could send you this paper that we’ve been reading in one of our classes, if you’re interested. It’s about why the healthcare sector is an example of ‘abnormal’ economics, where because of things like information asymmetry, markets just don’t seem to work as well as their supposed to.
Duh 🙂
I mean, I know that mixed economies work, I thought nearly everyone did, to some extent. I was just responding to “The Death of Capitalism”.
In capitals.