Category: Political Science & Economics

Most Brazen Act of 2008 Award

Category : Political Science & Economics
Posted on by

It has to go to Illinois Governor Rob Blagojevich who was arrested today on corruption allegations.  Not only did he try to have the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board fired for disagreeing with his policies, but he also tried to SELL A US SENATE SEAT.

Impressive, Mr. Blagojevich.   Didn’t you learn anything from Nixon?  Clearly not, since you were not worried about phone taps or recordings.  Among my favorite quotes:
  • The Senate seat “is a fucking valuable thing, you just don’t give it away for nothing.”
  • Unless “I get something real good,” he would appoint himself to the seat.
  • “I’m going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain. You hear what I’m saying. And if I don’t get what I want and I’m not satisfied with it, then I’ll just take the Senate seat myself.”

Financial Crisis Explained

Category : Political Science & Economics
Posted on by

This article by Michael Lewis explains the roots of the financial crisis in great detail, but is understandable enough that people without finance backgrounds can understand it.

My favorite excerpt:

“I’d never taken an accounting course, never run a business, never even had savings of my own to manage. I stumbled into a job at Salomon Brothers in 1985 and stumbled out much richer three years later, and even though I wrote a book about the experience, the whole thing still strikes me as preposterous—which is one of the reasons the money was so easy to walk away from. I figured the situation was unsustainable. Sooner rather than later, someone was going to identify me, along with a lot of people more or less like me, as a fraud. Sooner rather than later, there would come a Great Reckoning when Wall Street would wake up and hundreds if not thousands of young people like me, who had no business making huge bets with other people’s money, would be expelled from finance.”