Lots of Reading

• A new book by the authors of Freakonomics, unsurprisingly called SuperFreakonomics, is reviewed by John Mason at Seeking Alpha and Krugman in multiple parts. I have not read Freakonomics, though I should. I believe the main premise is a study of how people respond to incentive.
• The Mess That Greenspan Made points us to "The Warning", a documentary by PBS about how a potential whisteblower on the financial crisis was shut down by figures such as (naturally) Greenspan, Rubin, and Summers. A damning preview:
  

  At the center of it all he finds Brooksley Born, who speaks for the first time on television about her failed campaign to regulate the secretive, multitrillion-dollar derivatives market whose crash helped trigger the financial collapse in the fall of 2008. ...
  

  Greenspan, Rubin and Summers ultimately prevailed on Congress to stop Born and limit future regulation of derivatives. "Born faced a formidable struggle pushing for regulation at a time when the stock market was booming," Kirk says. "Alan Greenspan was the maestro, and both parties in Washington were united in a belief that the markets would take care of themselves."
  

  Now, with many of the same men who shut down Born in key positions in the Obama administration, The Warning reveals the complicated politics that led to this crisis and what it may say about current attempts to prevent the next one.
  

  "It'll happen again if we don't take the appropriate steps," Born warns. "There will be significant financial downturns and disasters attributed to this regulatory gap over and over until we learn from experience."
  

  
  
• An interesting interview with Eric Maskin, the Albert O Hirschman Professor of Social Science at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton. Woo titles. He's also a Nobel Prize winner, though the legitimacy of that prize is a little questionable right now. Anyway, the interview talks mostly about regulation and the need for it through brief reviews of various papers and books. It's a good primer for those who want a really simple, layman's overview of banking, regulation, etc.
  
• Must read.
• In an about-face from his role as described in "The Warning", Summers calls for banks to accept more stringent regulation. I think the real issue, beyond even accepting regulation, is that the government needs to enforce them. This is a problem that I don't see a solution to yet.
• Problems and Solutions. I like the Solutions part.