Initial Stuff

In this first post I want to put up links to some of the more fascinating articles/issues I've tracked since the start of this recent recession and market crash.

1. Michael Lewis is a pretty famous guy at this point. He is the author of Liar's Poker, which was one of the defining chronicles of Wall Street excess in the 1980's. He's still of course well connected and wrote this piece: The End of Wall Street's Boom
2. Zerohedge is a website I follow regularly, though it's clearly a little more conspiracy-oriented than the mainstream. It does, however, bring to light some very interesting issues: it's efforts have highlighted the issue of high frequency trading and flash orders, for example. One aspect on the 'conspiracy' side that has been echoed by a few others is the number of Goldman Sachs alumni in influential government positions. At the very least, there's some moral hazard, no?
3. I need to make a separate post on the more fundamental issues that I think led to this recent crash: lack of adequate government regulation, greed by financiers and bankers, and greed by regular people. All three are to blame, in my mind, though Wall Street seems to take the brunt of the anger. Hopefully I'll get around to posting more on that at some point.

**UPDATE 08/16/09** It has been pointed out to me that I used moral hazard incorrectly, or at least unclearly, in the 2nd item in the list above. Please see the comments here. What I meant to say, based on those comments, is that GS alumni in influential government positions may have a conflict of interest, and also may be able to provide 'insurance' for risky bets made by the bank in the form of bailouts, thus creating moral hazard.