The Economy - The blogs told you so

I had neglected to post a link to Jerome a Paris's review of years of warnings about the housing crisis, oil prices, the falling dollar, and the fundamental problems of the Greenspan and post-Greenspan financial era. There were fundamental problems blogs were warning about.

Debt funding consumption...

Debt hiding the lack of real economic progress for most...

Increasing reliance on the housing and financial sectors for "growth"...

Massive overbuild underway...

All flagged 3 years ago....

Weakening of regulation...

Increasing risk raking...

with the impression that risk has been covered ("hedged") and that all is well...

The big underlying trend of the past 25 years, and of the last 7 in particular, has been the increasing concentration of wealth in a very small number of hands - roughly the top 0.1% in the US and a few European countries. They have managed to essentially capture all income growth for themselves, leaving everybody else with stagnant real incomes.

In that context, plentiful and cheap debt was a simple way to distract people from their plight, by giving them a convenient way (and, when backed by house price increases, an apparently safe one) to continue on spending even without the requisite income, and thus to feel prosperous.

Perhaps some should quit their Wall Street Journal subscription and turn to good economic bloggers. Jerome has an update - the recession is already here for most.

Another economic writer to watch is bonddad, both on Daily Kos and his own blog. Here is what to look for in 2008.

Brad DeLong, blog here, is another who has been correct. In non-economic news he wonders if our longest national nightmare may be coming to an end. Catch the quote about McCain and note that has never been mentioned in any of our So-Called-Liberal-Media. "Remember John McCain's line about Chelsea Clinton--that she "is so ugly because her father is Janet Reno.""

Of course, we can't forget Krugman. Although interestingly he wonders if because of rising exports we are dodging a bullet on recession. I don't think the stimulus from export growth balances all the other negatives, but I don't have a PHD in economics.

Economists React, "looking for a bunker to hide in."

Tag: economy