Hilson touted over Geithner

[koganbot]

While everyone's talking about the Keri Hilson album having leaked, it's worth noting that the administration's plan for fixing the financial system has also leaked. Early responses are less favorable to Geithner than to Hilson. I didn't understand the plan as reported by the NY Times, hence I don't have an informed opinion. Paul Krugman's reaction is despair (and more detailed despair). Yves Smith calls the plan an abortion and she also uses the words "crappy" (in regard to what will be bought under the terms of the plan) and "idiots" (the administration's perception or misperception of who constitutes the public). And this guy, who may not actually be an economist, puts concerns to music.

(The Hilson, by the way, is yet another interesting album (see Vanessa Hudgens', Ryan Leslie's, and The-Dream's) by someone with no presence or charisma as a singer. So far the bits of beauty and the mere gestures towards passion seem sufficient, somehow, or fairly likable half the time, anyway. Better than I'd expected, though my expectations were lower than some people's. See my reappraisal of "Turnin' Me On" here.)

EDIT: DeLong, on the other hand, seems fairly happy with it, unless I'm misreading his tone, which I may well be. Not that I understand his analysis either, obviously, but my guess is that some of you will, since he's laying things out pretty simply.

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yes but isn't the problem that, while no one perhaps believes tins, no one in a "responsible" position can be seen to act as if they actively disbelieve it (because of the risk of the delcaration triggering a further collapse in confidence): so you're getting this super-fudgy "acting as if everything depends on the fact that there's a key 'they' that does still believe this (when we all know none of us do)"

the geithner gamble isn't perhaps so much that the assets themselves will turn all out to be salvageable, but that the market as a whole will recover (and in the process buoy the housing market up a little, even: so that in the long run some of them will deliver)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

here is yglesias making a sensible point in a tidy way, about the issue of confidence; and how value in respect of a lot of these closed boxes isn't intrinsic, it's social and situational

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

in the yglesias comments max (who may or may not be max sawicky but def knows his economic onions, which mnost of yglesias's commenters i think don't) amplifies that point, by expanding a critique of the geithner plan along the same lines

(the krugman and atrios and max critique of delong is i think that a lot of the damage to the assets is already done and the contraction is on its way unless something ELSE -- beyond the geithner plan -- gets enacted: ie "rescuing the banks" in the swedish sense, which basically means dissolving them and setting up a temporary govt bank in their place) (i'm pretty sure in the swedish example, the nationalisation was temporary)