Tag Archives: financial crises

Marching Towards Another Depression

A fas­ci­nat­ing arti­cle at New Deal 2.0 details the steps we are tak­ing towards a likely sec­ond Great Depres­sion. At a time when economies are tee­ter­ing on the edge of recov­ery and a sec­ond reces­sion, gov­ern­ments are start­ing to make noises, par­tic­u­larly in Europe, about reduc­ing deficits as a model for respon­si­ble finan­cial health. Unfor­tu­nately, …

June 8, 2010 – 9:18 am | By Brett Bim | Posted in Economics | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Can Civilization’s Birthplace Become Its Funeral Pyre?

Over­reach­ing head­lines aside, the Euro­zone is a bit of trou­ble. Greece has been bailed out in an attempt to avoid a sov­er­eign default. Those in the know think the Greeks are unlikely to be the last coun­try in the Euro­zone to require a bailout and the con­di­tions the IMF are expect­ing Greece to con­form with …

May 18, 2010 – 10:42 am | By Brett Bim | Posted in Economics | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

Inflation and the Fed

Dur­ing the cur­rent eco­nomic cri­sis, the Fed­eral Reserve has increased its bal­ance sheet sig­nif­i­cantly in order to increase the mon­e­tary liq­uid­ity in the econ­omy. Many peo­ple assume they have done this by “print­ing money” which in the­ory increases the money sup­ply held by the pub­lic and over the long term is infla­tion­ary. How­ever, because the …

July 22, 2009 – 10:00 am | By Brett Bim | Posted in Random | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Green Shoots Are Sometimes Weeds

As any gar­dener will tell you, healthy lawns hardly ever have weeds in them. This is because when a lawn is healthy, it is lush and thick and weeds don’t have a chance to grow. Weeds only show up in a lawn when there is some­thing wrong with the under­ly­ing soil or lawn. If the …

May 21, 2009 – 8:54 am | By Brett Bim | Posted in Economics | Tagged | Comments (0)

Richardson Tea Party

I went to the Richard­son Tea Party yes­ter­day and it was pretty inter­est­ing. The crowd looked like it was around 700 or so which is pretty good for a lunch day protest rally. We weren’t cen­tered in one place like in other tea par­ties around the coun­try. Most every­one was walk­ing around the park wav­ing …

April 16, 2009 – 6:42 am | By Brett Bim | Posted in Politics | Tagged , | Comments (8)

Tax Day Tea Party Protests

If you’ve been read­ing any­thing about pol­i­tics lately, you’ve surely seen at least cur­sory cov­er­age of local tea par­ties around the coun­try where peo­ple are com­ing together to protest the unbe­liev­able spend­ing that the fed­eral gov­ern­ment is doing in an attempt to get us out of the eco­nomic mess we’re in. These peo­ple are start­ing …

April 14, 2009 – 10:04 am | By Brett Bim | Posted in National Issues, Politics | Tagged | Comments (1)

Advice We Don’t Need

There’s noth­ing like hav­ing the Euro­peans tell us how to han­dle our hous­ing cri­sis. “But as the hous­ing bub­ble deflates, it also drags inno­cent vic­tims into a wave of fore­clo­sures” they crow! Please. What inno­cent vic­tims are being dragged into a wave of fore­clo­sures? Either you can afford the house you live in or you …

February 19, 2009 – 5:03 pm | By Brett Bim | Posted in Economics, National Issues | Tagged , | Comments (0)

When A Billion Isn’t Big Anymore

Not so long ago, a bil­lion dol­lars was a lot of money. Now? Not so much. This morn­ing, news on the wire says Obama is set­ting aside $75 bil­lion to slow fore­clo­sures. First of all, where did that $75 bil­lion come from that he’s set­ting aside? Oh yeah: “com­mit­ting $75 bil­lion of tax­payer money to …

February 18, 2009 – 11:10 am | By Brett Bim | Posted in Economics, National Issues | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Can You Cure An Addict By Giving Him More Drugs?

Only if you want to kill him. Car­o­line Baum dis­cusses this very topic on Bloomberg. Imag­ine a doc­tor who, faced with an alco­holic, diag­nosed more alco­hol as a treat­ment. A doc­tor like that would be thrown out of the med­ical pro­fes­sion and right­fully so. Yet, our polit­i­cal lead­ers, when faced by a cri­sis cre­ated by …

January 28, 2009 – 10:09 am | By Brett Bim | Posted in Economics, National Issues | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Dumb and Dumber

via Tom Toles at The Wash­ing­ton Post

October 8, 2008 – 3:12 pm | By Brett Bim | Posted in Economics, National Issues | Tagged , | Comments (0)