Links: Political Economy

• Gretchen Morgenson, Too Big to Fail, or Too Big to Handle?, The New York Times, 20 June 2009.
  
  Dean Starkman, The Most Important Financial Journalist of Her Generation (i.e., Gretchen Morgenson), The Nation, 17 June 2009.


• Devin Leonard, Treasury’s Got Bill Gross on Speed Dial, The New York Times, 20 June 2009.


• Olivier Blanchard, What is needed for a lasting recovery, The Financial Times, FT.com, 18 June 2009.
  
  via: naked capitalism.
  Note that Olivier Blanchard is chief economist of the IMF.


• Dean Baker, Health Care Protectionists Cannot Even Envision Trade, Beat the Press / The American Prospect, 20 June 2009.


• Michael Hudson, Obama's (Latest) Surrender to Wall Street: How the Financial Reform Plan Protects the Status Quo, CounterPunch.org, 22 June 2009.


• * Chris Hedges, The American Empire Is Bankrupt, TruthDig.com, 14 June 2009.
  
  Hedges refers to two articles, one by Michael Hudson and the other by John Lanchester. They are:
  
  Michael Hudson, Washington is unable to call all the shots, Financial Times, 15 June 2009.
  (Hedges calls Hudson's article "The Yekaterinburg Turning Point: De-Dollarization and the Ending of America’s Financial-Military Hegemony.")
  
  John Lanchester, It’s Finished, London Review of Books, 28 May 2009.


• Paul Krugman, Health Care Showdown, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 22 June 2009.


• Andrew E. Kramer, Russia Facing Long Recession, World Bank Says, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 24 June 2009.


• Vineet Nayar, The Employability Crisis is a Global Crisis, Bloomberg.com, 24 June 2009.
  
  A good example of globalist thinking; illustrates the challenges American workers face, especially wage variation due to international factors. Also, note the author's explicitly stated functions of the "education system."
  
  Rob Preston, Top Indian CEO: Most American Grads Are ‘Unemployable’, Global CIO Blog, InformationWeek, informationweek.com, 03 June 2009.


• William Pesek, Soros Goes Long as World Bank Shorts Recovery, Bloomberg.com, 26 June 2009.


• Louis Uchitelle, Despite Recession, Demand for Skilled Labor Is High, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 23 June 2009.


• Scott Thill, Will the 'Dollar Wars' Kill What's Left of the American Dream?, AlterNet.org, 26 June 2009.


• James Kwak, The McAllen Problem, The Baseline Scenario, 21 June 2009.


• Jeff Gerth and Brady Dennis, How a Loophole Benefits GE in Bank Rescue: Industrial Giant Becomes Top Recipient in Debt-Guarantee Program, The Washington Post, 29 June 2009.
  
  via: Jesse, Government Bails Out General Electric , Jesse's Café Américain, 29 June 2009.


• Richard Teitelbaum and Hugh Son, Unwinding at AIG Prompts Pasciucco to Ponder Systemic Failure, Bloomberg.com, 01 July 2009.


• David Rosenberg (and Hale "Bondad" Stewart), Just "Shoot" Me, [Invictus (?) 29 June 2009], The Bonddad Blog, 02 July 2009.
  
  Hale "Bonddad" Stewart, Don't Expect a Consumer-Led Recovery, The Huffington Post, 16 June 2009.


• Matt Taibbi, The Great American Bubble Machine, Rolling Stone, 02 July 2009.
  "Matt Taibbi on how Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression."
  
  Matt Taibbi, On giving Goldman a chance, Taibblog, True / Slant, TrueSlant.com, 30 June 2009.
  
  Barry Ritholtz, Gasparino vs Taibbi, The Big Picture, 06 August 2009.
  
  Simon Johnson, How To Blow A Bubble, The Baseline Scenario, 07 August 2009.


• David Brooks, Chinese Fireworks Display, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 02 July 2009.
  
  On Niall Ferguson's description of the China-US relationship, "Chimerica," and James Fallows more moderate view, at the Aspen Ideas Festival [video link].


• Guy Dinmore, Pope condemns capitalism’s ‘failures’, The Financial Times, FT.com, 07 July 2009.


• Paul Solman, For Ex-Cons and Laid-off Execs Alike, Dim Job Hopes, PBS Newshour, 08 July 2009.
  
  Some of the more bizzare and sad things I have ever seen: unemployed middle-aged ex-middle-managers talking in business jargon; ex-convicts being coached in job seeking.


• Michael Lewis, The Man Who Crashed the World, Vanity Fair, vanityfair.com, August 2009.
  
  On Joseph Cassano, former head of A.I.G.’s Financial Products unit.


• Bob Herbert, The Human Equation, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 10 July 2009.


• Joe Weisenthal, Shanghai Redefines Subprime Construction: Building Just Falls Over, Clusterstock, 29 June 2009.


• * Robert H. Frank, The Invisible Hand, Trumped by Darwin?, The New York Times, 11 July 2009.
  
  via: Mark Thoma, Trumped by Darwin?, Economist's View, 11 July 2009.


• * Paul Krugman, What Economists Can Learn from Evolutionary Theorists, A talk given to the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy, [date unknown by me].
  
  via: Mark Thoma, What Economists Can Learn from Evolutionary Theorists, Economist's View, 29 November 2006.


• Barry Ritholtz, Holding Securitizers Liable for Dubious Loans, The Big Picture, 12 July 2009.


• Unemployment and GDP, Calculated Risk, 11 July 2009.


• Second Stimulus Debate: Geithner vs. Krugman and Delong, Calculated Risk, 12 July 2009.


• Jesse, The China Bubble and the Convergence of Oligarchies, Jesse's Café Américain, 10 July 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, The events preceding Goldman Sachs' new "blowout profits", Salon.com, 13 July 2009.


• * Conn Hallinan, Blood and Oil in Central Asia, Foreign Policy In Focus, 15 July 2009.


• Binyamin Appelbaum, Bailout Overseer Says Banks Misused TARP Funds, The Washington Post, 20 July 2009.


• * Simon Johnson and John Talbott, Who caused the economic crisis?, Salon.com, 22 July 2009.
  
  Simon Johnson and John Talbott, "I would shut down the hedge fund industry", Salon.com, 23 July 2009.
  
  Simon Johnson and John Talbott, Fix the economy? Curb corporate America, Salon.com, 24 July 2009.


• * Robert L. Borosage, The Debtor's Dance: the U.S.-China Exchange, The Huffington Post, 29 July 2009.


• * Michael Lind, Can Obama be deprogrammed?: The president is a prisoner of the cult of neoliberalism, Salon.com, 04 August 2009.


• * Jesse, US Consumer Demand Off a Cliff as the Crisis Deepens, Jesse's Café Américain, 06 August 2009.
  
  Includes charts that illustrate & justify the assertion that the current recession is different. In light of this, the following seems particularly notable:
  
  Tim Iacono, Consumer credit contracts sharply, The Mess That Greenspan Made, 07 August 2009.


• Bianco Research, The Credit Crisis: The Largest Outlay In American History, The Big Picture, 07 August 2009.