or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
June 05, 2009
Where Your $700 Billion Went
A real estate agent from the Florida coast explained to me today how much the housing market has fallen there. He said one condominium that had sold several years ago for $425,000 was just resold for $100,000. And a house that was built new and sold for $550,000 was recently resold for $185,000.
Nevertheless, as extremely fancy Harvard professor Greg Mankiw tells us, no could possibly have foreseen etc., etc., etc. That's especially excellent considering that I asked him in 2005 why he was ignoring the work of people like Dean Baker who were screaming about the housing bubble at the top of their lungs.
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at June 5, 2009 06:06 PMWE wuz robbed!!! No use crying over spilt milk, there's PLENTY MORE where that came from going to get stolen before its over. Those economist missed the show because closed eyes is the "phrase that pays".
Posted by: Mike Meyer at June 5, 2009 08:16 PMSo the same people who failed to predict the housing bubble are teaching future economists to be like them.
Posted by: Rob Payne at June 5, 2009 11:40 PMNo what could have possible foreseen? No huxter with little smarts, or no sell-out raking it in from those culpable, or no Serious follower of respectability onliged not to listen to you and Baker?
Posted by: David Swanson at June 6, 2009 02:05 AMwhat's the percentage of Ivy League alumni who dare to question Imperialism?
5%? 3%? 0.001%?
what's the percentage of Ivy League professors who dare to question Imperialism?
0.001%? 0.00000001%? none?
gosh, no wonder Ivy grads and profs are so smug. for all their supposedly powerful minds, they've got an intellectual atrophy problem. That's probably because it's more interesting to them to split hairs of irrelevance on subjects such as "when is torture permissible?," because it's a lot more interesting to come up with new, creative excuses for the use of torture while pretending you're really trying to get people to see how supposedly bad you think torture is, even though you never say that you think it's abominable.
after all, you never know when you may want to torture someone!
Posted by: Jose Seis-Olla at June 6, 2009 01:41 PMmankiw prescribes leeches.
Posted by: hapa at June 6, 2009 05:53 PMAnd here I worried Mankiw was going Galt:
On a regular basis, I am offered opportunities to make some extra money. It could be giving a talk, writing an article, editing a journal, and so on. What incentive is there to put forward that extra work effort?An increase in his tax rates could lead to "a few more happy memories" for his kids. But for sympathetic readers, there was a downside:
The bottom line: If you are one of those people out there trying to induce me to do some work for you, there is a good chance I will turn you down.Lucky for us, Greg Mankiw has a surplus of incentives.
Posted by: racrecir at June 6, 2009 06:06 PM
"No what could have possible foreseen? No huxter with little smarts, or no sell-out raking it in from those culpable, or no Serious follower of respectability onliged not to listen to you and Baker?"
Huh?
Posted by: Coldtype at June 7, 2009 01:09 AM* "no [one] could have possibly foreseen?"
** "obliged"
it's a good point. baker's sardonic wit appears to let collusion off the hook with a dunce cap.
Posted by: hapa at June 7, 2009 02:56 PMwell, that proves that the professors, specially those who teach economics in institutions are just bookworms and do not have any practical knowledge. but i don't think they could have done anything about this housing bubble in Florida
Posted by: debanjan mukherjee at June 8, 2009 02:01 AM
