[PEN-L] Year of the Roller Coaster

Go Bernanke go! Sabri European Stocks Decline; Societe Generale, Barclays Lead Drop By Sarah Jones Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- European stocks fell, following declines in U.S. and Asian markets, on renewed concern the subprime-mortgage rout is spreading and will erode global economic g

[PEN-L] Sicko

As art and as political commentary, “Sicko” marks a giant leap forward for Michael Moore. Dispensing with a lot of the customary gimmicks of his previous films–including trademark confrontations with greedy corporate heads on their own turf–it focuses more on the stories of individuals who have

Re: [PEN-L] Recipeint of "National Medal of Science" on 9-11 as a false-flag operation (fwd)

On 8/27/07, sartesian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > As a matter of fact that's exactly what they did-- embedding the guest > terrorists in Afghanistan with the aid and comfort of Pakistan's > intelligence service, but with funding clearly from the Saudis. > ...and I believe they did it with some of

Re: [PEN-L] Recipeint of "National Medal of Science" on 9-11 as a false-flag operation (fwd)

Please stop this thread. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com

Re: [PEN-L] Which paper is the satire?

http://math.bu.edu/people/nk/rr/ = Debunking the Conventional Wisdom about the Science Wars, Especially the Sokal Affair and its Aftermath == Gabriel Stolzenberg In essays posted at this site, I use close readings of the science wars literature to debunk the convention

Re: [PEN-L] Which paper is the satire?

"What interests me is that Levitt and a bunch of other economists failed to recognize the paper as satire. I am fairly certain that almost anyone from outside the economics profession would have taken it as a joke." I've seen an example of this here... quite recently. Just replace the word 'paper'

Re: [PEN-L] Which paper is the satire?

It's hard to see how Levitt could possibly believe that Oxoby's working paper was anything else but a "toy" model and hardly worthy of comment. http://www.econ.ucalgary.ca/fac-files/rjo/wp0807.pdf In fact Oxoby's discussion paper (authored with Dickinson) on optimism versus pessimism is equally

[PEN-L] a data question about the credit crisis

I got a question the other day that has me puzzled. The sub-prime mortgage market makes up about 15 percent of the total market. Within the sub-prime market the default rate is still well less than 5 percent and in the mortgage market as a whole, the default rate is less than 1 percent. So if a

Re: [PEN-L] a data question about the credit crisis

On Aug 28, 2007, at 12:47 PM, Doug Orr wrote: Since ai am a bit behind in reading PEN-L (about 18,000 messages), I did go back over the past few weeks and found Doug Henwood's new piece from LBO. In that he seems to indicate that most of the problem is "animal spirits" , anxiety and panic. No

[PEN-L] MORE missing weapons in Iraq (Glocks turning up in Turkey)

More Missing Weapons & A Mysterious U.S. Military Officer's Suicide: American Weapons Recovered In Turkey Were Originally Destined For The Iraqi Government (the post also contains links to the Russian Mafia's involvement in the missing AK-47 saga, and a potential connection between the Mafia, the

Re: [PEN-L] How not to write about Venezuela

At 10:34 AM 27/08/2007, Louis wrote: In the July-August International Socialist Review, the theoretical journal of the state-capitalist International Socialist Organization, there’s an article by Lee Sustar titled “What does Chávez have in store for Venezuela?” He asks rhetorically if Chávez

[PEN-L] Who needs a recession?

http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9687245

Re: [PEN-L] a data question about the credit crisis

Doug Orr > The sub-prime mortgage market makes up about 15 percent of the total > market. Within the sub-prime market the default rate is still well > less than 5 percent and in the mortgage market as a whole, the > default rate is less than 1 percent. So if all of these mortgages > have been bu

Re: [PEN-L] a data question about the credit crisis

On Aug 28, 2007, at 5:18 PM, Sabri Oncu wrote: 1) The size of the sub-prime market is between $2 and $3 trillions: this is a lot by any standard. Where's that from? The total mortgage liability of U.S. households was $9.8 trillion in the first quarter of 2007; if subprime is around 15%, then t

Re: [PEN-L] a data question about the credit crisis

On 8/28/07, Sabri Oncu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Here are some random thoughts: > > 1) The size of the sub-prime market is between $2 and $3 trillions: this is a > lot by any standard. > > 2) Suppose for a while that the default rate in the sub-prime mortgage market > is 3%. Only this amounts to

Re: [PEN-L] Who needs a recession?

On 8/28/07, Julio Huato <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9687245 > The article has this interesting quote from Andrew Mellon. -snip This does not mean that the Fed should follow the advice of Andrew Mellon,

Re: [PEN-L] a data question about the credit crisis

Doug H: > Whether it's $45b, or $60b, or $90b, it's a lot of money, > but still a pretty small fraction of overall mortgage debt. Who taught you Americans to think in percentage terms only? Five percent of a dollar is 5 cents but five percent of trillion dollars is fifty billion dollars. Don't

[PEN-L] Fwd: Re: [PEN-L] a data question about the credit crisis

Sorry Doug. I did not mean to imply that you were only looking at anxiety and animal spirits. It is just that the numbers that you cite, which as always are in far more detail than most of us academic guys seem to have at our finger tips, seem to indicate a relatively small hit on the total

[PEN-L] Fwd: Re: [PEN-L] a data question about the credit crisis

Raghu raises another interesting question about the details of mortgage backed securities. In the "old days" of a decade or so ago, if a borrower defaulted on a mortgage, the bank that issued the mortgage took the house, sold it at auction and received the proceeds. The cost of reselling the hou

Re: [PEN-L] Who needs a recession?

Here is the reference to Mellon. It goes further than the article: Hoover, Herbert. 1952. The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover (NY: Macmillan): 3, p. 30 "The 'leave-it-alone liquidationists' headed by Secretary Mellon ... felt that the government must keep its hands off and let the slump liquidate itse

Re: [PEN-L] a data question about the credit crisis

An important dimension of the problem is the continual need to roll over paper of all kind. Fear can cause the market to seize up. I think of economics as a minor branch of psychology. On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 05:25:29PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: > > Whether it's $45b, or $60b, or $90b, it's a

Re: [PEN-L] Fwd: Re: [PEN-L] a data question about the credit crisis

Doug Orr wrote: Raghu raises another interesting question about the details of mortgage backed securities. In the "old days" of a decade or so ago, if a borrower defaulted on a mortgage, the bank that issued the mortgage took the house, sold it at auction and received the proceeds. The cost of

Re: [PEN-L] a data question about the credit crisis

Michael: > I think of economics as a minor branch of psychology. I think this statement is a bit of an exaggeration, although it is in the right direction. I would rephrase it as follows: "the intersection of economics and psychology is a large set." When I said something like this about some o

Re: [PEN-L] a data question about the credit crisis

Unlike I, this guy has too much reputation to protect, so he is playing it safe, but listen to him, I say: http://www.bloomberg.com/avp/avp.htm?clipSRC=mms://media2.bloomberg.com/cache/vizUQJOEua3A.asf Sabri Re