Crazy-assed architecture and development in Dubai. Lee Seigelman discussed an apartment project that will hold 1 million people. The best design, well the most over-the-top design, is coming out of totalitarian countries.
Looking on the bright side, Michael Lewis writes, "For years now Wall Street has been far too lucrative for a certain kind of energetic and ambitious person to justify anything but the most perfunctory personal life. Now that the market for his services has collapsed, he has time to go home and figure out which of the children roaming around the mansion are actually his."
Apt. 11d 
I know this is totally irrelevant to the thread, but how are you liking your kitchen?
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Also OT, except that the Obama people are spreadin it and lovin it, a quote from John McCain on healthcare: “Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.”
Because that approach has turned out so well for banking this fall…
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So did anyone else read Sebastian Mallaby in the WashPost, and his suggestion that taxpayers by a stake in the banks, to infuse capital, rather than buy unknown numbers of bad loans? (Sunday’s Wash Post?)
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This Mallaby essay? Happened to be open in my tabs.
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Thanks for asking, Wendy. The kitchen is great. Well worth the headache and expense, because we live our lives in that room now. I’ll post some pictures after we get around to hanging the art and finishing the trim.
Yeah, McCain=clueless.
I’m off to read the mallaby essay.
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Laura, excellent. It always seems so horrible while it’s happening, then one day all the cabinets are in and wow.
My sister is in the middle of kitchen reno hell, made worse because she has a weird contracting situation where they work 4 nights a week in the evenings. They’re cheaper, but it’s taking forever.
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Kids? Who needs kids? It’s Wall Street Baby!
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Krugman also suggests an infusion of cash.
I’m starting to feel a bit queasy about the rescue plan. I liked it when the stock market jumped up again on friday, but now, I’m worrying that the taxpayers are taking on a huge unknown risk that might actually benefit folks who got us into the mess in the first place.
(and, it does not make me happy that the person we’re supposed to be giving all this power to is the former CEO of Goldman, even though I try to avoid overly suspicious conspiracy theories).
We really need the Republicans out of there. They just have no credibility.
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“We really need the Republicans out of there. They just have no credibility.”
There’s a long list of Democrats deeply involved with Fannie Mae or who have embarrassing housing issues and sweetheart loans. And that goes all the way up to the top–both Biden and Obama were involved in real estate deals that smell funny. I haven’t followed the political side of the bailout very closely, but Barney Frank has been a prominent advocate of a housing bailout for some time, as has Schumer. This is no time to go into partisan turtle mode.
I agree that it’s a really tough issue. On the one hand, we don’t want the country’s economy to go down in flames. On the other hand, we can’t go on bailing out every major company that makes stupid decisions, because eventually there won’t be any money to do anything else.
Whatever we do, it’s going to be an extremely unpleasant three or four years. My suggestion (if for mental health reasons alone) is that it’s time to form some sort of truth commission to investigate the relationships between members of congress (and other high officials) and the major lenders. It’s been noted before that members of congress often start poor but almost invariably leave rich. I think the American public deserves to know why that is.
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