Clear writing on the Paulson plan

This post by Greg Mankiw of an email he received from Rob Shimer at Chicago is the most cogent thing I have read about the current financial situation and about the Paulson plan.

It is so good that I forgive Shimer for not offering money to my star undergrad from Maryland when he doing graduate admissions at Chicago a few years ago.

New things to try: bank run edition

So I got to participate, perhaps, in a bank run this morning. Though we are planning to move (back) to Bank of America now that they have moved into Ann Arbor (via their purchase of LaSalle Bank a year or so ago) we are still with National City.

The market seems to think that National City and the oddly named "Fifth / Third" bank (and more here) are the next ones to go. So I moved money this morning from the uninsured money market account to the insured checking account. It was much less thrilling than standing in a long line outside the bank but also much quicker.

Banking follies

You know, I was thinking "what could the banking system use just now?" and, I guess because I am a labor economist, I did not come up with any really convincing answers.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, who is not an economist of any sort, thinks that the magic ingredient is yet more moral hazard in the form of a higher FDIC guarantee.

Sigh.

Stanford 35 Washington 28

It was not really as close as the score suggests and the score leaves out the losses of Jake Locker to a broken thumb and D'Andre Goodwin, the team's only experienced receiver, plus others.

Some thoughts from Steve Kelley of the Seattle Times here.

The two brights spots were the continued strong play of backup (now starting) quarterback Ronnie Fouch, who is a better passer than Locker but lacks his running skills, and freshman running back Daniel Freeman, who was also injured mid-game but apparently not severely.

Another bright spot was the crowd. More than 60,000 showed up for the 0-4 Huskies. It is that level of support that will help make the UW job attractive to the next new coach.

The darkest spot was the defense, which is on a pace to underperform even last year's worst defense in school history.

Ty, and the season, are both probably done. Given the defensive performance it is hard to see the Huskies beating anyone other than Washington State, which is experiencing a disaster year even by recent Washington standards.

Ty seemed resigned and confused in the post-game interview. At the same time, given that his status is probably pretty clear at this point, maybe he can relax a bit as he tries to make something of the rest of the year.

Sigh.

"Making Money is Making Money"

An update on leading hypocrite and former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, who shows no signs of having lost his self-righteous ego or of having changed his policy views to match his own behavior.

The bluntly cynical contemplation of doing charity work solely to help his image is illuminating as well.

The NYT is much kinder to him than I would have been.

Technology and age

I got an email from Amazon today advertising (among other things) this Seagate 1 terrabyte (!) USB drive for US$145.

When I bought my first computer in 1984, I had the option, which I did not take, of having it include a 10 megabyte harddrive for an extra US$1000.00.

1 terrabyte = 1000 gigabytes = 1,000,000 megabytes.

Pardon me while I feel old.

Oregon State 27, USC 21

Wow!

It is a happy night.