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Needed: Objective, Fact-Based Financial Analysis

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Pew Charitable Trusts announced on May 27 the creation of a new Financial Reform Project to give us what we need: fact-based analyses of financial reforms being debated in Congress.

The recent flurry of attention to the new Supreme Court nominee seems to have taken everybody’s mind off regulatory reform of the financial markets, as has the apparent easing of the econonic crisis. But I’m with the experts who say that we are bound to repeat this economic catastrophe if real steps aren’t taken to get a handle on all the products sloshing through the market and all the practices taking place therein.

From the Pew release: “Leaders in Congress have signaled an intent to look at new ways to regulate the financial sector in the wake of the market events of last fall,” said John E. Morton, managing director of Pew’s Economic Policy Department. “Looking ahead, there will be a clear need for objective analysis of the costs and benefits of alternative regulatory proposals.”

This can only be to the good, but it’s not enough. We still need good journalists delving into the weeds of this stuff and getting all the information on the table. Let’s hope this Pew effort will help in that cause.  

And while we’re at it, let’s question the Supreme Court nominee not just on the important topics of abortion and civil rights, but on business, trade, regulation, and other commerce-related issues that seem to always get short-shrift on Capitol Hill.

 

 

Watch: Youth Today Original Video

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Youth Today: The Newspaper on Youth Work, for which I freelance, is expanding into do-it-yourself video journalism. This is the inaugural piece, written, reported, and produced by staff writer Jamaal Abdul-Alim, on a Tucson, Ariz., school-to-work program facing imminent budget cuts and closure. (Jamaal is still helping us learn the technology, but we were mighty impressed at this first effort! Learning to produce high-quality videos within the You Tube framework takes some time, we’re discovering.)

Abdul-Alim covers College&CareersToday for Youth Today through an initiative partially funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As he writes in the companion article—and shows clearly in the video—”[i]t’s just one more sign of how the recession is threatening promising youth programs.”

[video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2VWkQrwK-U]

Sunday NYT Magazine: Conan, et al.

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Finally a post after the Memorial Day break: Pointing you to a great profile of Conan O’Brien as he prepares to take over Leno’s late-night spot. Seems like there’s a bit of tension between them, but my guess is O’Brien will do as well as can be given the state of the television networks. This cover is really well done; the expression he managed to get on his face before jumping into a pool in a suit and tie shows this if nothing else: he’s a true performer. 

 

 

Guest Book Review: Losing Mum and Pup

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Richard Fitzpatrick, guest blogger, posts the following review of “Losing Mum and Pup,” by Christopher Buckley:

I recommend to Blog Alley readers a delightful memoir from the prolific pen and fertile mind of Christopher Buckley. As is probably known by now, and by all, “Losing Mum and Pup” chronicles the loss, within a year of each other, of Buckley’s mother and father, Patricia and William F. Buckley, Jr.
For those of you familiar with, and fans of, Mr. Buckley, it would be no surprise that the book is by turns witty—make that hysterical—poignant, profound, elliptical, insightful, and warm.
It was infused with a moving spirituality that is cleverly intermixed with the earthy and the profane. (Have I forgotten any adverbs and/or adjectives?)
The subject matter is, of course, inexhaustible and potentially dangerous in the hands of an only child with a laserlike wit, but Mr. Buckley has fashioned a remarkable tribute that transforms his father, the intellectual progenitor of 20th Century conservatism, and his mother, the zany, beautiful, and socially accomplished doyenne of New York society, into normal, needful, flawed, funny, accomplished, and always interesting, human beings. It is a beautiful eulogy!

Sunday NYT Magazine: Dilemmas of Debt

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I finally finished devouring my Sunday New York Times Magazine and, as always, nearly every article in there is thought-provoking and interesting.

There is a profile of Suze Orman, the personal finance maven who I always thought dispensed pretty obvious financial advice. (It’s not an entirely flattering portrait, but my guess is her $20 million-plus fortune is secure.)

There’s also a very interesting piece about the credit card companies’ efforts to learn about their customers’ purchase and payment habits and the ways in which they get those who’ve defaulted to pay up. (Also not flattering!)

Anyway, the issue is provided for free online but a subscription to the Sunday NYT is, to my mind, your best investment. Just don’t use your credit card.

P.S. As much as I love The Washington Post, its Sunday magazine has become, IMHO, cartoonishly bad. This past Sunday’s issue was dedicated to the 2009 Post Hunt, which apparently appealed to a whopping 10,000 area residents. How on earth is this of any news importance to justify making the cover of a purported news magazine?

I wish the editors over there would realize that substance sells. Either include real magazine journalism in the Sunday magazine or cease publication and put the money saved into journalism that can appear in the rest of the paper.

Much better would have been include this heartbreaking and well-reported story by DeNeen L. Brown (Style, May 18, 2009) about how you need to be rich to be poor and crafting an issue around poverty, finance, and the state of the U.S. economy./rant

Flashback: Whither the ‘Burbs?

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A friend points me to an article published last spring  in the Atlantic titled “The Next Slum,” by Christopher B. Leinberger, on whether all those McMansions constructed in the building frenzy will survive both the subprime crisis and what could be changing attitudes on the part of some Americans to move away from car-centric suburbs and exurbs to public-transportation-accessible, walkable urban areas.

The article relies in part on data from the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, which incidentially has an article in the May 2009 issue of Planning magazine on American Demographics, circa 2109. Using a midrange scenario, the authors envision a U.S. population double the size of today’s: 600 million people.

I don’t see how transporting that many people (nevermind housing, feeding, schooling, and caring for them) is possible without a wholesale rethinking of the way communities are designed and built.

Let’s hope some smart people get cracking on some good ideas!

 

Event: 134th Preakness Stakes

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The second leg of the Triple Crown is tomorrow at the dilapidated Pimlico Race Course in D.C.’s sister city of Baltimore. (In contrast with the dire condition of the actual facility, the Preakness has a cool new website.)

Rachel Alexandra, the filly, is the heavy favorite (from what I read), even though she drew the outer most post position. Andrew Beyer talks about the race in this video.  In his column today in the Washington Post, he says he’s rooting for her; this is short of an outright prediction that she will win, which means she still has a chance (ha, ha – joking, sort of). 

As always, if you’re opposed to horse racing,  donate to PETA here.

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