I HATE when my economy melts down
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zesmerelda/451715214/
“Mistakes were made” is an expression that is commonly used as a rhetorical device, whereby a speaker acknowledges that a situation was handled poorly or inappropriately but seeks to evade any direct admission or accusation of responsibility by using the passive voice. — Wikipedia
Warning, this post will contain no material directly related to teaching.
What a difference a year makes. Last August, Jennifer Doman in cliotech: History Repeating? asked if we were at the brink of another “Great Depression”. I blithely dismissed that possibility (barring incompetence on the part of the current administration–obviously I was being too generous). I was wrong. We may not have another Great Depression, but I wouldn’t rule it out as good possibility any longer.
After a weekend at home sick, catching up on the news of the week, I’ve discovered there is NOTHING MORE DEPRESSING than reading economists during a near meltdown of the economy. Here is my reading list…
This is a really great blog where the the owner (a PhD in Economics at U of Oregon) collects opinions from a variety of economists, and reprints them. WARNING! The civility level of comments on politically oriented blogs is MUCH lower than in edublogging. The blog owner is kind and civil, so ignore the trolls.
I came across Megan on BloggingHeads.tv. She is of a libertarian bent, so I don’t always agree with her, but I find her points easy to understand, and her writing engaging.
Paul Krugman – The New York Times
A thought mover among liberal economists. You might as well get it from the source, since he is easy to understand, and breaks it down.
A new discovery. This piece, NPR: Hear: The Week America’s Economy Almost Died, is the best explanation of the meltdown that happened. It’s going to appear as a longer segment on “This American Life” for fans of that show.
The bottomline, this crisis is not just affecting “bad banks” who made “bad loans” but companies like Honda and Caterpillar who had no part of that. If it’s not resolved, layoffs will happen.