At 5 pm Eastern, I’ll be hosting a book salon with Barry Ritholz, about his book Bailout Nation, at Firedoglake. Not to spoil the review, but it’s a good book, in fact, the best I’ve read about the crisis and what lead up to it. Barry’s one of the folks who got it, who understood early. Those who have been following me since I first started writing for blogs will remember that Barry was one of the original writers at The Blogging of the President, the first major blog I wrote for. At that time, him, Oldman, Stirling Newberry, Hale Stewart and myself all wrote for BOPnews. Perhaps nostalgia or pride clouds my memory, but I think BOP at that time had as good or better economics coverage than any blog at the time or since. There is almost nothing, in general terms, which has happened since then economically, which one of us did not discuss then.
Barry is now at The Big Picture, one of the economics blogs I have on my blogroll. I reccomend reading it regularly.
DupinTM
Nothing has matched that coverage. Billmon came close at the time, but you guys covered all the angles from such diverse points of view. I still remember trying for hours to wrestle over you, Oldman (RIP), and Stirling’s slight disagreements on such relatively arcane matters (for me at the time).
I wish BOP had more than just the wayback machine, and that all of you 4’s big pieces, like Stirling’s Thermidor essays, had some kinda nicely archived location somewhere.
Ian Welsh
Yeah. A programmer friend of mine is pulling the archives, and once I have them, I will start reposting the articles I can which are still of interest. (Only mine, unfortunately, as I don’t have the right to repost other people’s posts).
I think the difference between BOP and the big econoblogs right now is that we had a very wide perspective and didn’t just deal with the news of the day, but did a lot of writing intended to explain how the economy worked and the fundamental causes driving the economy, especially for the last 30 years or so.
I need to get back to writing such articles. I used to write one every 2 or 3 weeks for FDL, but that has gone by the wayside.
peter cowan
nostalgia and pride may cloud your memory, BOPNews didn’t have just as good or better economics coverage than the others, it had the best. i read that blog religiously (sometimes commented as colorless green ideas) keeping up with all the posts was such a major distraction from work, but it was well worth it. alas, i was so heartbroken when it went offline. any chance the writing of oldman and stirling newberry might get pulled from the archives and posted as well? i’m a programmer, i’d be more than happy to help…
Ian Welsh
Can’t really with Oldman, since he can’t give consent. Could always ask Stirling and see if he’s willing.
Nate Wilcox
Its a crime that the BOP archives aren’t online. Oldman’s work in particular should be reposted — if anything BECAUSE he can’t give consent. Its such a shame that his prescient analysis is lost to us.
That site was so good, DupinTM is right, only Billmon came close at the time.