The Crisis Six Years On Eugene Linden : endangered animals, rapid climate change, global deforestation, fragging

THE HAMMER OF THOR… AND LIZ AND BARBRA AND GEORGE AND KAMALA

Lately, I’ve returned to my roots in investigative journalism. I’m trying to get to the bottom to a recurrent episode of collective madness where every four years a marauding posse of celebrities, media figures, and supreme court justices go rampaging through the political landscape w...

The Crisis Six Years On

Friday September 20, 2013

Because the collapse of Lehman in Sept. 2008 serves as such a convenient inflection point, it's easy to forget that the Great Recession started at least nine months earlier, and that the shadow banking system started to unravel more than a year earlier. This also underscores the offensiveness of the many economic and political bigwigs who protested that "Nobody saw this coming" when things really got bad in the fall of 2008. Many credible analysts saw everything that was coming. I wrote about the dire implications of the unfolding crisis at least seven times before Lehman collapsed ( here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). I suspect that many of those who proclaimed to be blindsided actually knew better, but hoped the stock market (which made a new high just two months before the recession began) wouldn't notice. It's also possible -- though terrifying -- that the Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, who persistently described the housing crisis as "contained," was so blinkered by non-reality-based economics that he actually didn't see it coming.

A couple of predictions I made back then did not come to pass. Most notably, I predicted that the harsh economy would lead to a new appreciation of safety nets and other protections afforded by the government. Instead, we saw the rise of the Tea Party, whose members call for the dismantling of safety nets and regulations.

So here we are, six years later, with the markets once again at an all time high and the economy still mired in what might best be described as a depression. Margin debt is back to pre-collapse levels, the big banks are bigger than ever, and the rich are richer than ever. Yet the average American household remains tapped out, and struggles with a real income just a bit more than it was in 1973. So, in a few months, get ready to hear, once again, that "nobody saw this coming."

Short Take

The Laws of Physics for Babies

[I published this years ago, but with friends having babies, I thought it might be a useful resource]

THE LAWS OF PHYSICS FOR BABIES

Close observation of babies has led me to believe that the infant universe is characterized by its own physics, quite distinct from particle physics or the Newtonian laws of motion. I welcome and will periodically post suggestions about additional laws of the baby universe.

LAWS OF MOTION:

1) The Inflationary Universe: Obects tend to recede when you reach for them.

2) The Boomerang Effect: Once successfully grabbed, however, objects usually reappear after being thrown, with the special exception of objects made of glass or metal.

3) The Relativity of Gravity:

a) Gravity and Acoustics. Gravity can be temporarily reversed by generating noises, but only in the presence of other people. The speed of this reversal is directly proportional to the decibel level of the sounds generated.

b) Gravity and Context. Gravity spontaneously and unexpectedly reverses itself when approaching stairs, antiques, and the Thanksgiving dinner table.

FLUID DYNAMICS: 1) Animal Spirits: Fluids have a vital forces that causes them to splash and spill unless contained in bottles and sippy cups.

MATERIALS PHYSICS:

1) Conservation of Shape: Once broken or bent, objects tend to reappear in their original configutation.

2) Transformation: When reached for, shiny metal objects tend to recede and then become transformed into plastic or rubber.

GRAND UNIFYING CONSTANT: The Attractive Pull of Mommy: the one universal force.