Ezra Klein

The Lewin Group “Staff Working Paper” examining the feasibility of combining the Baucus health care proposal with Ron Wyden Healthy Americans Act is, on first glance, a bit puzzling. For those interested, the paper concludes that harmonization is, indeed, feasible. But that’s not a particularly interesting result. It’s like finding that you can change the […]

I try, when possible, to link to useful explanatory documents in the financial crisis. And this IMF two-pager on the basics of securitization is pretty clear. It doesn’t do a very good job getting into the problems with the practice, but it’s a very clear explanation of the mechanisms beneath it. In particular, watch how […]

Remember TALF? Launched by Paulson last November? Crummier name than TARP? Focused on consumers rather than banks? Yeah, that TALF. This was the so-called “consumer bailout” — $220 billion to kickstart the private market’s purchases of consumer asset-backed securities like auto loans, credit-card debt, and student loans. The money would go to magnify the investments […]

Simon Johnson is an economist, but he’s also, as Tim Fernholz writes, a pretty committed political economist. The core of his approach to the financial crisis has been an analysis of power relations, not mere capital inflows. Some folks argue that the financial crisis is a simple story of bad decisions by poorly incentivized bankers. […]

Obama met with some representatives from the credit industry today in advance of his administration’s effort to better regulate the industry. Which is the sort of thing that frequently frustrates Obama’s left-leaning critics. But walking out, he gave some quick remarks that should comfort them, including this statement of regulatory principles: First of all, I […]

The argument that Wall Street is actually allergic, rather than attracted, to risk brought to mind a quote from Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker: The biggest myth about bond traders, and therefore the greatest misunderstanding about the unprecedented prosperity of Wall Street in 80s, are that they make their money by taking large risks. A few […]

Felix Salmon’s in Dallas today giving a terribly depressing speech to the Regional Bond Dealers Association. A terribly depressing speech which, through the magic of the interwebs, can now depress all of us! In particular, I recommend the beginning, which takes on the prevailing wisdom that Wall Street developed an overly high tolerance for risk. […]

It’s good news that the World Bank is going to offer $55 billion in infrastructure stimulus to developing nations. But maybe it’s testament to the times that that number seems pretty low to me: $55 billion just isn’t much money given the scale of the problem. And this is a bigger issue for developing nations. […]

I’m pretty struck by news that Nancy Pelosi was informed that the government was wiretapping Jane Harman. This, it seems, is standard operating practice: According to the Post, “it is a ‘tradition’ for the top Democrat and Republican in the House to be alerted whenever a member is under surveillance using wiretaps or other methods.” […]

I’d missed this the other day, but Tim Geithner apparently comforted the markets by assuring them that the “vast majority” of banks are well capitalized. But this, as Paul Krugman says, is meaningless. “There are 1,722 institutions on the Fed’s list of ‘large commercial banks’….But the big guys are where the money is. The top […]