towards a better future?

Rather than entailing any sacrifice to our lifestyles, this would bring huge benefits. People would reclaim time for personal and family life. They would commute less and enjoy healthier modes of travelling such as walking, cycling and boating. Supermarket shopping would cede to a resurgence in local stores, making town centres more individual and boosting local communities. All this would transform urban and rural living, and provide more tranquil space for reflection, as well as opportunities for sensual experience now denied by harried travel and work routines. These revised ideas of the “good life” might also inspire less-developed countries to reconsider the conventions and goals of development, enabling them to avoid some of the less desirable consequences of the current model.

(more)

H/T: econospeak

easy come easy go

will you let me go?

This is an important distinction when considering the difference between demand sustained by increased credit and demand sustained by rising wages. Credit-driven demand is inherently unstable. To put it proverbially, it is “easy come, easy go.”

one would think that such things are obvious, but apparently have to be explained to even people who are supposed to be economists.

roubini says it all

By requesting a status change from independent broker dealer to bank holding company, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have officially spelled the end of Wall Street as we know it.  Within six months, all five investment banks – Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs – have disappeared or are looking to merge with a commercial bank with a stable deposit base and permanent access to the Federal Reserve’s lender of last resort facilities.  The unraveling of the $10 trillion shadow banking system that started with the non-bank mortgage lenders, SIVs and conduits – now with the seizing of major independent broker dealers and money market funds – is in full swing and gathering steam.  Highly leveraged hedge funds might indeed be the next in line.