Thursday, August 16, 2007

Bubble bursting, or something else?

The current meltdown in global markets is driven by sub-prime debt. The following article from TIME.com is a short and readable explanation of the linkages:

Wall Street's Geniuses Blow Up the Lab
By RICHARD BOOKSTABER
Looks like Wall Street's mad scientists have blown up the lab again. The subprime mess that is cutting so wide a swath through financial markets can be traced to the alchemy of creating collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) compounded by the enormous amount of leverage applied by big hedge funds. CDOs are derivatives — synthetic financial instruments derived from another asset.
(...Read More)

Bookstaber is a former hedge fund manager and the author of A Demon of Our Own Design. He blogs here.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Do you love school? Hate school?

An opinion from The Case Against College, by Linda Lee:
Here is who belongs in college: the high-achieving student who is interested in learning for learning's sake, those who intend to become schoolteachers and those young people who seem certain to go on to advanced degrees
(...Read more)

Well, what do you think? Should almost everyone go to university? Why or why not? What do you love most about school?

Previously on UpNaira

 

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