Commentary on the Big Lie, Japan’s scary finances, from a Catholic private school in India to a nuclear bomb in North Korea, confessions of an economist, Mark Carney on what’s next, and a modest proposal reprinted.

Just like governments telling their citizens that crime rates are rising to justify boneheaded crime bills, financial firm apologists have been blaming the mortgage crisis on public policy that encouraged home ownership. Shame.

New York Times -- The Big Lie
So this is how the Big Lie works.

Quote worth quoting.

“The S.E.C.’s facts paint a picture in which it wasn’t high-minded government mandates that did [Fannie and Freddie] wrong, but rather the monomaniacal focus of top management on market share.”

Related.

Washington Post – What Caused the Financial Crisis: The Big Lie Goes Viral
I have a fairly simple approach to investing: Start with data and objective evidence to determine the dominant elements driving the market action right now.

Japan’s finances get worse.

Japan Times -- Cabinet crafts record ¥96 trillion budget
The Cabinet of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda agreed Saturday to submit a record-high ¥96 trillion initial budget for the next fiscal year, highlighting the difficulties of funding quake-reconstruction work and social security while trying to maintain fiscal discipline.

 

Life works in mysterious ways. Thanks to David of London.

Telegraph -- In part, the Marists of Ireland helped equip the Marxists of North Korea with nuclear weapons
This coming year marks the 120th anniversary of the establishment by Irish Marists of St Anthony's school in Lahore, in what was then the Punjab Province of the British Raj in India.

Don Drummond confesses that there is more to increasing investment than lower taxes and other incentives.

Pdf below -- Confessions of a Serial Productivity Researcher

How to grow when debt contracts?

Pdf below -- Growth in the Age of Delevaging

End the veto and other things.

ipolitics – Democratising Platform Development Within the Liberal Party
At the heart of any political movement is a political program for governing – a program that is effectively articulated by its leadership but guided by its proponents – the Liberal Party needs a structural, but more importantly, a cultural rebalancing of its own internal relationships which have become characterized by polarization and mistrust.