Check out Clyde Haberman’s amusing piece on our new relationship to the banks whose practices triggered our new grand depression. According to his calculations, we all–that is if you’re taxpayer like myself–now hold a $1,785.71 stake in the banks our government bailed out. He figures that as shareholders we have right to question some of [...]
Posts Tagged ‘economy’
We Own the Banks
Posted in Economics, Politics, tagged banks, Clyde Haberman, credit crisis, economy, Great Depression, Henry Paulson, Joe Nocera, JPMorgan, New York Times on October 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A New Look at Debt
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged crisis, debt, economy, Margaret Atwood on October 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Apparently, Margaret Atwood, renown novelist, author of The Handmaiden’s Tale, has written a new book on debt, which happens to be a rather timely subject. Today, she has an op-ed on the same topic:
Debt — who owes what to whom, or to what, and how that debt gets paid — is a subject much larger [...]
Credit Crunch Animated
Posted in Economics, tagged ABC News, banks, credit crisis, economy, Robert Krulwich, subprime crisis on October 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In case you or your child don’t understand why your net worth is dropping precipitously (animation starts at 0:28):
Courtesy of ABC News.
Free Greenwash w/ Every Tank
Posted in Culture, Environment, tagged BP, economy, Environment, ExxonMobil, gas, green, oil, Shell, Stephen Colbert on October 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I don’t know if you have seen any of the commercials by BP, Exxon, or Shell in which these oil companies, the same companies reaping windfall profits from record oil prices, burnish their green credentials. The commercials are all fairly similar; we learn that the companies are looking ‘beyond petroleum’ to renewable sources of energy: [...]
Main Street Mirror
Posted in Economics, Politics, tagged American Dream, banks, Bethany McLean, economy, loans, Main Street, mortages, NYtimes, subprime crisis, Wall Street on October 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In a NYtimes op-ed, Bethany McLean asks the question we’ve all been asking: Who’s to blame for this mess? In a balanced response, rather than just point the proverbial finger at Wall Street, she also considers the role borrowers played:
But who made the decision to take on that mortgage she couldn’t really afford? Who lied [...]
