As an economist, I am supposed to have something intelligent to say about the current financial crisis. To be honest, however, I haven’t got the foggiest idea what this all means. So I did what I always do when something related to banking arises: I knocked on the doors of my colleagues Doug Diamond and Anil Kashyap, and asked them for the answers. What they told me was so interesting and insightful that I begged them to write their explanations down for a broader audience.
Go to the Freakanomics blog link above for the "F.A.Q.’s of Lehman and A.I.G." .... its a really long post (with almost 200 comments already) but may be worth reading to understand all that has happened! Admittedly, its a tangled web and despite reading a lot of different articles, I am not sure I understand everything that was done by some rather unscrupulous and greedy people. It is too much for me to read now, with the clock having gone past the midnight hour, but I've bookmarked it and hopefully will get back to it soon!
However, from the above post, I was lead to another guest post at the Freakanomics blog.
AIMRco, the Adult Internet Market Research Company issued a press release earlier this month claiming that, based on a survey of an unspecified number of adult entertainment websites, “many sites have experienced between a 20 to 30 percent growth in membership rates since mid-May when the [stimulus] checks were first sent out, and typically the summer is a slow period for this market.” The release goes on to quote the spokeswoman for an adult website which fielded a survey of new members, revealing that 32 percent of respondents “referenced the recent stimulus package as part of their decision to either become a new member, or renew an existing membership.”
HILARIOUS! This is NOT what Bush meant when he gave away the "stimulus" package :)
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