11.09.2008

Some crisis links (11.9.2008)

Writing for the Washington Post (via Naked Capitalism), Joseph Stiglitz warns the President-elect to expect a long, deep and career-defining recession. "The first task facing President-elect Obama, after eight years of misguided economic policies, will be to begin the recovery — or at least forestall a further decline. It won't be easy," Stiglitz counsels. Stiglitz's reforms are radical given the ideological tenor and institutional decay of the past 40 years. Together they amount to a new economic model. This

…model will require changes in the ways and places where we live and work. There will be some losers (including the oil industry, which has done jarringly well in recent years), but there will be even more winners.

In so many ways, the United States has reached a low point. Picking ourselves up off the ground is itself no mean achievement. But I hope that our new president will do even more for us than that.

What is a crisis? It is a moment of dusk and dawn, of death and birth.

China, in response to its slowing growth rate, announced a $586B stimulus plan, according to the New York Times.

Congressional Democrats have also caught the spirit of reform. They want to divert a part of Paulson's gift to Wall Street by giving it to America's faltering auto industry (see this and this). Following the President-elect's lead, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wants Congress to pass a stimulus package before January, according to the Journal.

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