Wednesday, February 18, 2009

How the economy disintegrated

A brilliant one-hour program on the financial meltdown of 2008, courtesy of PBS and Frontline. Must-see.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Watched it last night. Good show.

Saw this the other day:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/9/234340/6189/142/695504

"September 18, 2008 the U.S. was hours away from declaring martial law." Rep. Paul Kanjorski D- Pennsylvania.

RJ

Zen Wizard said...

Wish I could have seen it on TV--can't really watch it at work.

I think it is going to take us a couple years to figure out what was the "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" in this debacle.

But I remember in 1999, a big real estate developer observing that when interest rates got low, people raised the prices on houses that were for sale, on the theory that people could afford "more house." Obviously, it's the SAME house for more money. This guy was musing about how he was developing apartments in a really blue collar part of town and charging over 1000 per month for them, which was big money in those days.

I don't know the answer, and I am as guilty as the next guy, but housing is still a problem: People commit to too much of their debt-to-income ratio too far from their job, and when gas prices go up, it's the "perfect storm."

Another curious thing about this meltdown was that people with indicia of being a good risk (high credit score) turned out to be just as flaky and "moral hazard"-like as the low credit score people, which is what the credit score is supposed to predict.

Also, part of the blame goes to Moody's, who rated CDO's as "ivestment grade," clearing the way for banks to invest in them.

Anonymous said...

missed it tues. due to a sudden influx of red wine supplies, but...all Frontlines are online now, so i look forward to mixing up a 9 oz. gin martini and sitting down in front of the oul' laptop and commence my depression.

Velociman said...

PBS and Frontline? I'm sure it's quite unbiased. No mention of Frank, Dodd, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or the Community Reinvestment Act. Just Republicans and Bush contriving to destroy the economy for personal gain. !11!!

Did Moyers take time off from outing fags to narrate it?

Did they say how many unicorn farts O will have to bring to bear to fix it all?

Just "keeping it real", babe. You know how I am.

Loves and hugs,

V

Erin O'Brien said...

Why! Its worse than I thought ... they can't even watch television for themselves!

gurgle gurgle gurgle

Anonymous said...

keep in mind that despite the label "PBS" frontline has been known to jump the gun and overdo things in other situations...

Erin O'Brien said...

Peeps, you really ought to watch the show for yourselves. Paulson comes off very sympathetically.

Erin O'Brien said...

And you really ought to visit the page RJ cited above as well.