Crisis of Credit video

Roy posted this really interesting video explaining current credit crisis:

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Looking for a Job?

Marty Nemko wrote two great articles recently about finding a job.

1. What do I do if I got fired today?
2. One week job search strategy

Somewhat related, he also gave a speech to graduates at Columbia (MO) college back in December. He talks about spending and saving as well as some other helpful things. Check it out

(HT:Taylor Brooks

Should the falling home values be stopped?

Here's a quick, insightful jab at the logic of wanting to stop the falling prices of homes. This is the opening line:

"Here's the big problem with almost all the current rhetoric about the housing crisis: It presumes that the goal should be to get house prices rising again. The problem with that idea is that, even after a 25% decline, house prices are still way too high."

(HT:Tim Challies)

Where's $819 billion going?

This chart is helpful look at the specific places where Obama's $819 billion economic stimulus plan will go.

(HT:Tim Challies)

Calvin and the Economy

I love Calvin and Hobbes. It's hilarious and brilliant. Here's a timely cartoon published 15 years ago. (Click to enlarge)

(HT:Barrett)

Are we wrong about our economic principles?

Adbusters has a recent article constrasting two different views of the economy, growth vs. steady-state. Having not ever taken an economics class, I found the article pretty interesting. Most of the time I figure that the way things are running now must be the best, if not the only way to do things. As usual, Adbusters helps me take a look outside my 21st Century Western bias:

"The most important change in recent times has been the enormous growth of one subsystem of the Earth, namely the economy, relative to the total system, the ecosphere. This huge shift from an 'empty' to a 'full' world is truly 'something new under the sun,' as historian J. R. McNeil calls it in his book of that title. The closer the economy approaches the scale of the whole Earth, the more it will have to conform to the physical behavior mode of the Earth. That behavior mode is a steady state – a system that permits qualitative development but not aggregate quantitative growth. Growth is more of the same stuff; development is the same amount of better stuff (or at least different stuff). The remaining natural world is no longer able to provide the sources and sinks for the metabolic throughput necessary to sustain the existing oversized economy – much less a growing one. Economists have focused too much on the economy’s circulatory system and have neglected to study its digestive tract. Throughput growth means pushing more of the same food through an ever larger digestive tract; development means eating better food and digesting it more thoroughly. Clearly the economy must conform to the rules of a steady state – seek qualitative development, but stop aggregate quantitative growth. GDP increase conflates these two very different things.

We have lived for 200 years in a growth economy. That makes it hard to imagine what a steady-state economy (SSE) would be like, even though for most of our history mankind has lived in an economy in which annual growth has been negligible. Some think an SSE would mean freezing in the dark under communist tyranny. Some say that huge improvements in technology (energy efficiency, recycling) are so easy that it will make the adjustment both profitable and fun."

The steady-state economy also seems to be the answer to better helper poorer countries:

"For poor countries GDP growth still increases welfare, at least if reasonably distributed. The question is, what is the best thing for rich countries to do to help poor countries? The World Bank’s answer is that the rich should continue to grow as rapidly as possible to provide markets for the poor and to accumulate capital to invest in poor countries. The steady state answer is that the rich should reduce their throughput growth to free up resources and ecological space for use by the poor, while focusing their domestic efforts on development, technical and social improvements, that can be freely shared with poor countries."

Read the whole thing

Another good summary of financial crisis

Jim Manzi gives us his take. As I've read a ton of articles about all this mess, this was one of the more interesting and big picture articles.

Good Summation of Financial World...and lemmings

Being in the banking industry, I am overloaded with information about all the financial chaos going on. I ran across this post over at Justin's blog today and thought it was a pretty good analysis of recent happenings, all from a Christian's perspective. So, if you don't know much about what has gone on in the last several months regarding the economic world, check it out.

Also, I wanted an excuse to put up a video that I saw yesterday, and because of the above post I have it. Abraham Piper posted a funny video about lemmings. And the above interview mentions this herd mentality of many people and of lemmings. Check out this post to see what I mean. How crazy!