links for 2008-03-15

• Rubin: Public Money Likely Needed on Mortgages - WSJ Economics Blog
• Fed Invokes Depression-Era Law for Bear Loan - WSJ Economics Blog
• Mathematicians find new solutions to an ancient puzzle - EurekAlert
• Financial system must tap the taxpayer - FT
• Electability - Lane Kenworthy
• How to deal with the Financial Crisis - Justin Fox
• Condi and the Boys - The New York Review of Books
• Looking even more like a recession - Econbrowser
• Debating Common Wealth - By Jeffrey Sachs and Martin Wolf

Comments

[anne]

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/Tragedy/juliuscaesar/juliuscaesar.1.2.html

1599

The Life and Death of Julius Caesar
By William Shakespeare

Act I. Scene II.

Rome. A public place.

Flourish. Enter CAESAR; ANTONY, for the course; CALPURNIA, PORTIA, DECIUS BRUTUS, CICERO, BRUTUS, CASSIUS, and CASCA; a great crowd following, among them a Soothsayer

CAESAR

Calpurnia!

CASCA

Peace, ho! Caesar speaks.

CAESAR

Calpurnia!

CALPURNIA

Here, my lord.

CAESAR

Stand you directly in Antonius' way,
When he doth run his course. Antonius!

ANTONY

Caesar, my lord?

CAESAR

Forget not, in your speed, Antonius,
To touch Calpurnia; for our elders say,
The barren, touched in this holy chase,
Shake off their sterile curse.

ANTONY

I shall remember:
When Caesar says 'do this,' it is perform'd.

CAESAR

Set on; and leave no ceremony out.

Flourish

Soothsayer

Caesar!

CAESAR

Ha! who calls?

CASCA

Bid every noise be still: peace yet again!

CAESAR

Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music,
Cry 'Caesar!' Speak; Caesar is turn'd to hear.

Soothsayer
Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR

What man is that?

BRUTUS

A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.

CAESAR

Set him before me; let me see his face.

CASSIUS

Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.

CAESAR

What say'st thou to me now? speak once again.

Soothsayer
Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR

He is a dreamer; let us leave him: pass.

[anne]

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/call-the-metaphor-police/

March 15, 2008

Call the Metaphor Police!
By Paul Krugman

I’ve been worried for a while about the fact that, according to financial reporters, the freezing up of the credit markets is causing a financial meltdown. The world is ending in ice and fire, simultaneously. But this * is true cause for alarm:

“The self-feeding downturn now in place shows signs of becoming deeply entrenched,” economists at Citigroup wrote Friday.

Uh oh. we’ve got a downturn that can feed itself and, at the same time, dig trenches.

The fascist octopus will sing its swan song any day now.

* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/business/16bernanke.html

[anne]

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/779.html

1920

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

-- Robert Frost

[anne]

What the heck, as long as we're rollin'

Rescue me
Oh take me in your arms
Rescue me
I want your tender charms
'Coz I'm lonely and I'm blue
I need you and your love too

Come on and rescue me
Come on baby and rescue me
Come on baby and rescue me
'Coz I need you, by my side
Can't you see that I'm lonely
Rescue me

-- Aretha

[anne]

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/0315-20.htm

March 15, 2005

Today's Lesson About the Ides of March
By James Carroll - Boston Globe

I don't know what this column is about. My impulses collide. A year ago this week, I observed the first anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq. (''Whatever happens from this week forward in Iraq," I concluded, ''the main outcome of the war, for the United States, is clear. We have defeated ourselves.") The second anniversary could give me a subject, especially in light of the punditry's recent conclusion that George W. Bush was ''right" after all. But I screech against the war so often that I sound like a broken record, even to myself. (''What's a record?" my young friend asks.) ...

But today is the Ides of March. Is that a subject? ''Beware the Ides of March," the soothsayer warns Julius Caesar. He has business at the Senate and brushes the old man off. ''He is a dreamer," Caesar says. ''Let us leave him. Pass!" In her new book ''Shakespeare After All," Marjorie Garber highlights this moment in ''Julius Caesar." She says, ''The play is full of dreams, omens, portents, superstitions, and prophecies, all elements of the powerful irrational." Thinking of Caesar's fate, Garber says that ''such signs" are ''dangerously disregarded." ...