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Mar. 9th, 2005 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickFinance, finance, finance.
Topics include Bretton-Woods lessons for today, the new-ish Fed Blog at bankrate.com, the Fed on consumer finances, wanker reporting at the Grey Lady, and how to check out the status of a bill (review of material covered in a previous post on virtual child porn).
I've pimped Brad Setser's blog before -- he's got game as far as finance stuff goes. If you want someone to coherently explain the trade deficit or the likely future stability of the dollar, Brad's your man. This time around, I'm pimping him for a nice discussion of the death of the 'real' Bretton-Woods and what that can maybe tell us about the (likely) impending crisis facing our de-facto Bretton-Woods2 situation with asian countries buying our debt and supporting the dollar in so doing.
Now, it's quite possible that more than a few gentle readers are going "Bretton-Whatsis?". Fear not. Wikipedia can tell you all about it. (No, really, this is interesting reading.)
Also, bankrate.com now has a blog for what's going on over at the Fed. That's worth a look if you've got any interest in what Greenspan is up to... and you SHOULD have some interest in what Greenspan is up to. I've been particularly interested in his more public statements on things only tangentially related to the Fed -- I expect that this volubility is because he expires in 2006. Lame duck-i-tude loosens a lot of tongues. Today's post (on consumer credit) is pretty damn illuminating, but not in a good way. People have too much debt. I'm not sure why we keep acting like this is news. *sigh*
One of the reasons Greenspan gets to talk about consumer debt as chairman of the Federal Reserve is that the Federal Reserve keeps track of how Merkins are doing financially. This isn't as high profile as setting interest rates, but it's still something the Fed does and I guess that gives Greenspan something of a mandate to discuss it. Anyway, above and beyond little tidbits like in the Fed Blog post above, the Fed does a huge survey every three years and it puts this information (The Survey of Consumer Finances) on its website. If you haven't gone to see how the other half lives, it might be worth your time to check out the stats. You know you want to. First one's free...
The NYT has an article on bankruptcy reform efforts going on in the US Senate. As we learned from our foray into the delights of virtual kiddie porn, bills under consideration in Congress can be researched online, for free, over at Thomas. (Ya'll were paying attention to that, right? Right?) The NYT article discusses "the bill" without ever telling us WHAT THE FUCK BILL IT IS. That's pretty damned lame. The article also fails to mention who introduced the legislation or the fucking SHORT TITLE of the bill. Damn. So, y'know, if you were moved or inspired by the NYT article to go maybe see what your congresspeople were doing with this bill on bankruptcy reform, you couldn't get very far with what the NYT handed out. Bunch of wankers, over there at the Grey Lady. I don't really want received wisdom if it doesn't come with the tools to go find and read for myself, with my pitiful little brain.
However, a little legwork over at our new friend Thomas turned up Senate bill S. 256, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. That sounds pretty promising, doesn't it? This bill is active and was voted cloture in the Senate by 69-31 on 3-8-05, so it's probably the bill discussed in the NYT article. Cloture, since I had to look it up, is the only way the Senate can place a time limit on consideration of a bill or other matter, and thereby pre-emptively block any filibustering. Oooh, nifty political maneuvering! This is almost as exciting as The West Wing!
Topics include Bretton-Woods lessons for today, the new-ish Fed Blog at bankrate.com, the Fed on consumer finances, wanker reporting at the Grey Lady, and how to check out the status of a bill (review of material covered in a previous post on virtual child porn).
I've pimped Brad Setser's blog before -- he's got game as far as finance stuff goes. If you want someone to coherently explain the trade deficit or the likely future stability of the dollar, Brad's your man. This time around, I'm pimping him for a nice discussion of the death of the 'real' Bretton-Woods and what that can maybe tell us about the (likely) impending crisis facing our de-facto Bretton-Woods2 situation with asian countries buying our debt and supporting the dollar in so doing.
Now, it's quite possible that more than a few gentle readers are going "Bretton-Whatsis?". Fear not. Wikipedia can tell you all about it. (No, really, this is interesting reading.)
Also, bankrate.com now has a blog for what's going on over at the Fed. That's worth a look if you've got any interest in what Greenspan is up to... and you SHOULD have some interest in what Greenspan is up to. I've been particularly interested in his more public statements on things only tangentially related to the Fed -- I expect that this volubility is because he expires in 2006. Lame duck-i-tude loosens a lot of tongues. Today's post (on consumer credit) is pretty damn illuminating, but not in a good way. People have too much debt. I'm not sure why we keep acting like this is news. *sigh*
One of the reasons Greenspan gets to talk about consumer debt as chairman of the Federal Reserve is that the Federal Reserve keeps track of how Merkins are doing financially. This isn't as high profile as setting interest rates, but it's still something the Fed does and I guess that gives Greenspan something of a mandate to discuss it. Anyway, above and beyond little tidbits like in the Fed Blog post above, the Fed does a huge survey every three years and it puts this information (The Survey of Consumer Finances) on its website. If you haven't gone to see how the other half lives, it might be worth your time to check out the stats. You know you want to. First one's free...
The NYT has an article on bankruptcy reform efforts going on in the US Senate. As we learned from our foray into the delights of virtual kiddie porn, bills under consideration in Congress can be researched online, for free, over at Thomas. (Ya'll were paying attention to that, right? Right?) The NYT article discusses "the bill" without ever telling us WHAT THE FUCK BILL IT IS. That's pretty damned lame. The article also fails to mention who introduced the legislation or the fucking SHORT TITLE of the bill. Damn. So, y'know, if you were moved or inspired by the NYT article to go maybe see what your congresspeople were doing with this bill on bankruptcy reform, you couldn't get very far with what the NYT handed out. Bunch of wankers, over there at the Grey Lady. I don't really want received wisdom if it doesn't come with the tools to go find and read for myself, with my pitiful little brain.
However, a little legwork over at our new friend Thomas turned up Senate bill S. 256, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. That sounds pretty promising, doesn't it? This bill is active and was voted cloture in the Senate by 69-31 on 3-8-05, so it's probably the bill discussed in the NYT article. Cloture, since I had to look it up, is the only way the Senate can place a time limit on consideration of a bill or other matter, and thereby pre-emptively block any filibustering. Oooh, nifty political maneuvering! This is almost as exciting as The West Wing!
