Someone pointed out that I left the dotcom bubble off of my spaghetti graph. My bad. There it is [NASDAQ] for your perusal. About the same time, Enron went up in smoke. The dotcom bubble must’ve made a pretty big splash, because Greenspan cut the interest rate from ~6% to ~1% and kept it down […]
Bush: ‘Fundamentals of our economy are strong’ Chicago Tribune by Mark Silva August 10, 2007 With the stock market on a roller coaster, mortgages foreclosing, the housing market off and new questions being raised about the nation’s infrastructure, President Bush is striving to assure Americans that the economy is "strong"… "The American economy is the […]
The last graph in the last post was pretty striking to me – the sustained rise in housing starts that lasted for 13 years just doesn’t seem to have a precedent. I replotted it with party-in-power and didn’t see much that looked like a relationship. Something else was afoot. Then I plotted unemployment [Recessions] and […]
Looking at the bottom graph [one month net change in unemployment], it’s easy to see that this was "the big one." And it lingers [top graph], with unemployment seeming to dawdle a bit below 10%. If where I live is any indicator, one of the main forces at work is the fall of the housing […]
10/02/2010 We’ve been at it for a lot longer!
CNN’s Rick Sanchez fired after explosive interview on satellite radio Washington Post By Lisa de Moraes October 2, 2010 CNN fired Rick Sanchez on Friday afternoon in response to a radio interview on a SiriusXM radio show during which Sanchez called Comedy Central late-night host Jon Stewart a "bigot" and implied that the media as […]
Bishop Eddie Long: Preaching amid abuse charges While in the throes of child rape allegations, the pastor delivers sermons to wild crowds Salon By GREG BLUESTEIN October 3, 2010 A megachurch pastor accused of luring four young men into sexual relationships said Sunday that he won’t be pulled into a street fight over the allegations […]
The bulletproof candidacy of Nathan Deal Atlanta Journal Constitution by Jim Galloway October 2, 2010 One of the Legislature’s more popular Republican members stopped outside the state Capitol on Thursday to pose a loaded question. “When will the media stop beating up on Nathan Deal?” he asked, adding, “Not that it matters.” The lawmaker smiled […]
Every time one of these scandals happens, I am awed by the number of people involved and the amount of money being thrown around. I went to the New Birth web site looking to see if his self-referential rhetoric is something new, or a product of the scandal. But the web-site is interesting in its […]
Blair’s case for Iraq invasion was self-serving, lawyers tell Chilcot inquiry guardian.co.uk by Richard Norton-Taylor 30 September 2010 The Blair government undermined the UN, bowed to US political pressure and relied on self-serving arguments to justify its decision to invade Iraq, according to evidence to the Chilcot inquiry by international lawyers. A key theme of […]