In direct contravention of my wife's explicit instructions, herewith I inaugurate my first blog. Long may it prosper.

For some reason, I think I have something to say to you. You think you have something to say to me? Email me at: gideonsblogger -at- yahoo -dot- com

 
And a good piece by Samuelson, also in the Washington Post, on the recession that almost wasn't. Want to know why people thought the recession was going to be so bad? Because the people who did the thinking lived in New York, San Francisco, Washington - places that were the epicenter of the recession. The overinvestment by business was highly concentrated in the technology and telecom sectors. The stock-market shenanigans of Enron and the Internet bubble affected primarily the upper-middle-class and the wealthy. The Great American Consumer is better off now than in 2000 because prices and interest rates have fallen. The house is worth more and a car can be financed for free. And there is still a whole lot of money out there. I visited a hedge fund in 2001 that had over $2 billion of uninvested capital, and they had just received $1 billion more from existing investors. That's one hedge fund, and you haven't even heard of it. The biggest worry is what it always is: that we'll try to inflate our way into a recovery that is stronger than we are ready for. That's why we have to keep an eye on government spending more than anything else.
posted by Noah at 6:15 PM