Akkam’s Razor

It goes without saying that given the stream of news through this weekend through Monday (Fannie Mae, Fannie Mac, IndyMac, and National City), the most popular post on Akkam’s Razor is this one, detailing my findings in search for the FDIC’s bad bank list.

bankrun, banks, business, CAMELS, economics, Election 2008, fannie mac, fannie mae, FDIC, finance, government, indymac, moral hazard, national city, news, politics, UBPR

Popularity: 1% [?]

Mark Nickolas has posted that Hillary needs to run for President of Appalachia, confirmed by her strong performance last night in West Virginia. It is tempting to disregard this electoral preference on surface faultline demography like race, age, poorest, or education, but Josh Marshall at TPM hints at something more.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Death and Taxes, known for a detailed infographic displaying expenditures in the 2006 US Federal Budget has been updated for 2007 with Iraq spending, the President's 2008 Budget, and the President's salary and bills.    

Popularity: 11% [?]

This weekend, I filled up our 2006 Toyota Sienna at the local BP-McDonald's and spotted a sticker I hadn't noticed before on the pump:

Popularity: 17% [?]

So let's pretend, just for a minute, that we pull it off…enough Americans come to their senses and steer us away from the iceburg.  We don't escalate Iraq and ignite a regional war, we change our borrow and spend fiscal policies and start planning for a sustainable future, we don't cook and then freeze ourselves out of existence, and we solidify, codify, and if necessary reframe out government to be more transparent and accountable, so that this sort of mess we've gotten ourselves into doesn't happen again.

Like I said, just pretend.

What do we do with these people?  What do we do with people that advocate nuking entire regions (and lack the common sense that radiation would complicate their oil changes at Jiffy Lube)?  What do we do with people who nod their heads appreciatively at radio hosts who advocate the poisining of Supreme Court Justices, genocide, political assasinations, and paranoid delusions?

What do you do with people who vote against their own financial interests based on "populist" notions like racism, religious superiority, xenophobia, and fascist authoritarian cult behavior and lack the intellectual curiousity and "liberal arts" thinking skills to actually evaluate how and why they are being manipulated?

What do you do with people who prefer the certainty of a lie to the uncertainty of truth?

Popularity: 55% [?]

I didn't expect to see this from Businessweek:

The Economy: Not Looking Like Christmas

The GDP, even revised up, is still down. Inventories have grown. And data like truck-freight stats are nothing you'd want under the tree

Popularity: 8% [?]

42% of Americans feel the price of gasoline is being manipulated in advance of the fall elections.

There is an reciprocal relationship between the President's approval ratings and gasoline prices (as prices go down, Bush approval goes up - via Dr. Pollkatz).

Oil is at it's lowest point, due to the "end of the summer driving season and switch to regular gasoline blends", which of course is industry shorthand for "only a few more weeks until we tell them prices are increasing in anticipation of a cold winter".

Benjamin Franklin once said:

Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes. 

DeviantArt via Metafilter.  Project home page and high-resolution original can be found here.

Popularity: 6% [?]

One of the subjects that I did horribly in during my undergraduate years was Economics - both micro and macro.  As such, it's been a subject that I am now fascinated with.

There's always some interested economic themed stuff out there, and a gaggle of blogs that focusing exclusively on the subject.

The New Economist points to a Brad DeLong writeup in Salon, as well as several others, all pointed to signs of a coming recession, or worse.  They also link to an econblog roundup in "The Economist".

There's an important policy and economic lesson is New Jersey's budget crises, that is applicable to the crises that we are likely to see on ever widening scales - it's even more important to understand the big picture of how we got there.

Popularity: 7% [?]