Comments on: Best Joke About the Financial Crisis Updated

By: Richard Gardner

Richard Gardner — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:58:10 +0000

And Yglesias himself apparently doesn't know what happened to oil prices, nor was it properly reported in most cases. Monday was the close (last day to trade, though settlement occurs the next day) of the October Delivery oil contracts (AKA witching). Lots of folks had invested (bet) wrong on the price of oil and there was a short squeeze, no different than a stock short squeeze. The price of November contracts did not change significantly on Monday, nor the price of refined products like gas and fuel oil.

Come Tuesday there are no more October contracts to trade. The November contract is the one quoted and it didn't go berserk. That is why oil was up $25 on Monday, but on Tuesday it was at about the same level it started Monday but there was no -$25 (the delta is only November contracts, not Oct to Nov contracts).

This was a market artificiality but the average reporter will run and scream disaster. But I'm still wondering who got ruined by the one-day pop, and who got a windfall.

I'm also keeping this simple, there is more details to all this.

By: PoliBlog (TM): A Rough Draft of my Thoughts » Lunchtime Funnies

PoliBlog (TM): A Rough Draft of my Thoughts » Lunchtime Funnies — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:42:07 +0000

[...] agree with Alex Knapp, this is funny. addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.poliblogger.com%2F%3Fp%3D14214'; addthis_title = [...]

By: E!! The True Conservative Story™ » Blog Archive » Financial Crisis: Laughter is the Best Medicine

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:22:07 +0000

[...] (H/T: Outside the Beltway) [...]

By: Steve Verdon

Steve Verdon — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:52:40 +0000

That is funny, hadn't seen it before.

What makes it quite ironic though is that guys like Klein, et. al. would love a bailout. It is the epitome of what the government is supposed to do. Step into a crisis and make things right. The only reason why they oppose it now is pure partisan politics.

In short Klein is a complete political hack. For more evidence see his stance on Bush's health care proposal about a year ago. At first he loved it. Got a beating in his comments and immediately about-faced like a good little progressive.

By: Dave Schuler

Dave Schuler — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:48:52 +0000