Ezra Klein

The administration is arguing that the private sector’s risk aversion will ensure accurate pricing. As Geithner said at this morning’s pen and pad briefing, “we’re going to use the financial incentives of investors to help set the price.” The problem is that what we normally think of as “the financial incentives of investors” includes aversion […]

Brad DeLong’s explanation of the Geithner plan — which is what everyone appears to be agreeing to call it — is really a must-read. It’s a much better explanation of the plan than, say Timothy Geithner’s explanation on the plan, which more asserts the plan’s goodness than explains it. Brad DeLong’s explanation also has the […]

Or at least something very much like it. Lucian Bebchuk, a professor of law, economics, and finance at Harvard apparently put forward a similar plan some months ago, and explained his thinking on Mark Thoma’s blog. A lot, as he says, depends on the structure of the auction. But getting it right seems very delicate […]

It’s probably a bad sign that the administration leaked the details of their full banking plan in a Friday night newsdump. And reading it, you can see why. Most expected that the harsh reaction to the skeletal structure Geithner originally unveiled would force substantial changes. That doesn’t seem to have happened. “It’s exactly the plan […]

What’s long baffled me about Madoff’s scheme is that Madoff was already rich. He began as a successful money market manager building faster, more technologically advanced, platforms. Why begin a Ponzi scheme? Ron Chernow has an article this week that might provide an answer. He delves into the story of Ivar Kruegar, a Swedish matchmaker […]

Provided by the prescient Dean Baker and the fine folks at CEPR. And it’s available for free here.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad just released his take on the new CBO numbers: “CBO’s new deficit estimates are further evidence of the mess that has been handed the Obama administration. They show the continuing weakening of the economy has significantly worsened our budget outlook. CBO now believes the ten-year deficits under the President’s […]

I really love the opening scene from Jeffrey Toobin’s profile of Roland Burris: Burris, the junior senator from Illinois, is trim and fit for a man of seventy-one, with a full head of hair barely flecked with gray. He beckoned a young aide to keep up as he bounded toward an elevator reserved for senators. […]

The big story in DC today is a graph. Namely, this graph: Those lines show the Congressional Budget office’s latest projections: A historic deficit actually made worse by Obama’s budget. The important number is $1.8 trillion which, on cable news shows, will only be uttered as “almost $2 trillion.” That’s CBO’s proposed deficit in 2009. […]

The other day I twittered (tweeted? tweetered?) that “Ann Althouse sure has a lot of anti-semitic commenters.” Althouse wants a correction and an apology. In any case, she’s certainly entitled to an explanation. The twitter came after I was alerted to her thread on Journolist, which included such charming reactions as “looks like more of […]