links for 2010-05-05

Ryan Avent on Stupidest Man Alive Candidate Casey Mulligan

RA: "POP QUIZ: was the American housing boom based on fundamentals or was it entirely driven by speculation? A silly question, you say. Bubbles typically begin to inflate based on fundamentals-driven price signals, and they later graduate to unsustainable increases as credit expands and new buyers enter the market to speculate that prices will rise indefinitely. The answer, then isn't either-or...