Well, let's hope the celebrities who put all their money into Dubai World don't lose it all, or, worse, thinking they'll lose it all, spark a panic. It's certainly our duty to prevent that. (One imagines the calls: "Don't you know who I am?") Felix Salmon has a nice post, with a chart, and makes this point:

Who knew there was such a thing (and no, the name is not ironic).

Felix Salmon:

The length of time the average unemployed person has been without a job has been hitting new record highs for a while; it’s now managed to pass the 6-month mark. That’s much higher than any previous peak in this data series. And I fear that the only way it’s likely to come down any time soon is as these people become so demoralized that they take themselves out of the labor force altogether.

The overwhelming majority of the working population will never be able to prepare themselves for a period of unemployment lasting more than six months. As financial-market types worry about possible inflation in a few years’ time, tens of millions of Americans are finding themselves in a very real personal financial crisis to which there is no visible solution. Given the Fed’s dual mandate, it makes sense to keep interest rates low for the foreseeable future. Inflation is possible; unemployment is catastrophically real.

But isn't it great that we didn't lose our houses because of HOLC? Oh, wait... But isn't it great that we have jobs from a 21st century WPA? Oh, wait... But isn't it great that we don't lose health care even when we lose our jobs? Oh, wait... And isn't it great that we've reined in the banksters so they don't do the same thing all over again? Oh, wait...

I meant to post on this awhile back, but RL intervened, and so but I want to lay down a marker, because this is an important story to watch.

It seems Our Betters are in the process of deciding that more of us will never have jobs, like, ever again. Fortunately, few of us will lose our homes, because of HOLC... Well, fortunately, none of us will die sick and poor because we have single payer, so health care is a right... Oh, wait.*

Via the terrific Interfluidity, this very important post. First, let's look at "vanilla products," in this case for financial services:

Vanilla products would be very popular, which is why they are so threatening. Financial services are an area where markets not only fail due to informational problems, but where participants are very aware of that failure. Consumers know they are at a disadvantage when transacting with banks, and do not believe that reputational constraints or internal controls offer sufficient guarantee of fair-dealing. Status quo financial services should be a classic "lemons" problem*, a no-trade equilibrium. Unfortunately, those models of no-trade equilibria don't take into account that people sometimes really need the products they cannot intelligently buy, and so tolerate large rent extractions if they must in order to transact.

Lambert here. The 30 cents of every health care dollar that goes to health insurance companies is one such rent. "Progressives" believe that such "large rent extractions" are painless, and that we should not only tolerate them, but subsidize them for people who cannot pay. Single payer advocates believe that the extraction is not painless, but pernicious, and that we should abolish it entirely. Since health care insurance reform is the administration's signature domestic initiative, most of us have had our attention focused there. If the focus had been financial reform, a similar conflict would no doubt have played out, with the Neo-Broders seeking to ameliorate and preserve rent extraction by banksters, while the left would have sought to abolish it, through proposals like making banks into regulated public utilities, and so forth.