We often hear the question “isn’t this economic crisis becoming as bad as the Great Depression?” Economists can offer a variety of reassurances, but each of them is quite circumscribed:
Category Archives: financial crisis
Needed in Treasury Plan: Price-discovery, write-down, & taxpayer protection
Some observations on the plan announced by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner yesterday:
Clearly we need to hear more details. I sympathize with Geithner, who has only been in office a couple of weeks. He has had to take over in the middle of the worst financial crisis in 77 years, at the same time that he must personally fill out the reams of forms that it takes to get confirmed by the Senate (like all such new appointees) and to fill lots of positions throughout the upper levels of the Treasury. But the American public will demand further elaboration on his plan soon.
The Tenth-Ranked Quotation of 2008: Atheists & Libertarians
The Yale Book of Quotations provides a useful service: It tabulates well-known sound-bites, but tries to get the exact quote and citation right, which is rare. (P.T. Barnum in fact never said “There is a sucker born every minute.” Richard Nixon never said “But it would be wrong.” Etc.) The editor also compiles an annual list of Top Ten Quotes of the Year. In the second week of December he released the list for 2008. Number 1, for example, is “I can see Russia from my house” (carefully attributed to the Tina Fey parody rather than precisely what Sarah Palin originally said).