Bailout and Financial Crisis News

Paul Krugman writes: Bizarro Health Reform Arguments: As health reform moves to its final, make or break vote… Republicans are still denouncing it as a vast, evil government takeover. But they have a problem: Obamacare is very much like the Massachusetts health reform, which was not only implemented by a Republican governor, but by a [...]

By Alexander Hotz The financial crisis has given new legs to the idea of taxing financial transactions. The European Parliament voted today to develop a new “transaction tax plan” that would “ensure that the financial industry pays for the damage caused by the financial crisis,” according to this statement. Paul Krugman, another backer of the idea, argued last [...]

Early this morning, we flagged the fact that the Intrade odds on Obamacare had spiked, as the realization sets in that the Dems have the momentum. Paul Krugman smells victory Betting markets don’t have any mystical power, but they do summarize conventional wisdom pretty well; and judging from Intrade, health reform has gone from a long shot [...]

Gretchen Morgenson is the NYT’s lead attack-dog on issues relating to Wall Street and derivatives, but her pieces are frequently the subject to the kind of criticism that was formerly reserved for Ben Stein. But her latest piece takes the cake, for right at the top she writes: Like the credit default swaps that hid Greece’s obligations, [...]

There is a long tradition on this blog of “picking on poor Gretchen” - mostly from Tanta, but I’ve added a little. Anyone who follows the above link, please scroll down for Tanta’s pieces. Gretchen’s column today is another … doozy. Luckily others have beat me to this one. From Felix Salmon at Reuters: The NYT jumps [...]

1) Jeff’s Cheap Talk: Your Brain Wants You To Help The Poor. Are You Listening?: In a paper in Nature; the authors Tricomi, Rangel, Camerer, and O’Doherty used fMRI experiments to reveal that the brain is wired for egalitarianism. 'Activity rose in rich people when their poor colleagues got money. In fact, it was [...]

Paul Krugman of the NYT (and left wing) enjoys what he’s seeing in the cross-town (right wing) paper: Brad DeLong and Felix Salmon both point to evidence that the Murdoch effect is degrading the Journal’s news coverage. Indeed. Frankly, there was a time when I thought the Journal was better on business/economic news than the Times. But [...]

1) SPECIAL BONUS STUPIDEST MAN ALIVE EVER CONTEST: The Stupidest Man Alive contest is now closed for all time. The winner–who should make his apologies to the Emperor immediately–is Clark Hoyt of the New York Times for saying: The story says O’Keefe dressed up as a pimp and trained his hidden camera on Acorn counselors. It [...]

It’s nice to see that there are honest journalists in the world who don’t retreat to “he said, she said.” Thank you very much, M.S. It is enormously appreciated: The stimulus and jobs bills: Tax cuts can in fact create jobs: SEE what you think of this argument: it’s impossible for tax cuts to create jobs. When [...]

1) Andy Sullivan: US stimulus added up to 2.1 mln jobs in Q4 2009: WASHINGTON, Feb 23 (Reuters) - The massive stimulus package passed last year to blunt the impact of the worst U.S. recession in 70 years created up to 2.1 million jobs in the last three months of 2009, the non-partisan Congressional Budget [...]

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