'It's like the sports pages'
Quote of the month goes to a Hub Blog relative who's now an avid reader of business sections' daily dose of scoundrels and losers, bad strategies and near misses, stock-market standings and the exciting race to the ethical and financial bottom. "It's like the sports pages," he said. ...

With that in mind, I pass along the latest analysis pieces on Harvard's financial woes here and here. Reader No. 1 also passes along this excellent article on Nouriel "Dr. Doom" Roubini, who thinks free-marketers better get off their Ayn Rand butts when it comes to looking at the economic world realistically:

The idea that government will fork out trillions of dollars to try to rescue financial institutions, and throw more money after bad dollars, is not appealing because then the fiscal cost is much larger. So rather than being seen as something Bolshevik, nationalization is seen as pragmatic. Paradoxically, the proposal is more market-friendly than the alternative of zombie banks.

I said something similar today while wearing my other hat. But don't count on a new birth of Republican pragamaticism any time soon. The time for paradoxical pragmaticism was during negotiations over the stimulus bill. Now some GOP governors are trying make a last stand when it doesn't matter. The money's out the door, governors. ... I'm tempted to make a snide remark about how it's going to be a long wilderness era for Republicans. But then I read the latest jobs-multiplier nonsense from the Obama administration and Congress and I think, "How many seats will Democrats lose in 2010? Twenty? Forty?"  ¶ 3:27 PM