What we talk about when we talk about DOOM

Walter Russel Mead has been beating "death of the blue model" drum pretty hard for the past year or so, and here are three recent pieces that deserve a mention: Illinois’s Blue Robin Hoods Stealing from the Young to Give to the Old; The Gray Lady Confirms Blue Civil War; Life After Blue.

Yeah, I'd like the New York Stock Exchange, please. And...I guess a milkshake. And fries.

A primer on contract law in Middle Earth.

THIS is how you say "screw you" to the taxman without going to jail. Petty revenge is sometimes the best we can do.

Teh Krugman announces that our financial problems are "already, to a large degree, solved". Monty declares that Teh Krugman's head is, to a large degree, roughly the same size and shape as Sputnik. Spherical, but quite pointy at parts. (That was offsides, wasn't it? He'll be cryin' himself to sleep tonight on his huge pilla.)

And while we're on the topic of problems that were supposedly solved but are just as big a disaster as ever: Greece asks Europe to please send more money.

I've long said that one of the biggest stories of the 21st century will be the demographic and economic implosion of Japan. China will be eyeing the Japanese closely to spot weakness, and the Chinese themselves face an unprecedented demographic and fiscal crunch soon. There's a lot of potential for bad things to happen in that part of the world.

California is boned: Moody's new pension rules could immediately bankrupt six counties. Or, rather, the new rules would make it clear that at least six counties are already bankrupt. If states and municipalities had to adhere to the same accounting rules as businesses do, two-thirds of the damned country would be declared bankrupt.

Inigo Montoya to Governor Moonbeam: You keep using the word "balanced". I do not think it means what you think it means.

Wait, wait, wait...I thought the Chinese were supposed to be bailing us out!

The Fed "underestimated" the 2007-2008 financial crisis in much the same way that George Armstrong Custer "underestimated" the forces arrayed against him at Little Big Horn.

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(Thanks to Jane D'oh for the DOOM kitty)

posted by Monty at 07:50 AM

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