Becker-Posner on whether the US will go the way of Japan.
Dean Baker on the dollar’s rout (or not).
Barry Ritholz on a potential new amendmentthat will create even more zombie banks.
SportsBiz is a neat sports business blog that I recently discovered.
Kim Grant has [...]
Students were occupying buildings Friday on several campuses of the University of California system in protest of a 32 percent tuition hike.
...
University officials said the $505 million to be raised by the tuition increases is needed to prevent even deeper cuts than those already made because of California's [...]
Libertarian Press owns the rights to Omnipotent Government by Mises, and we couldn't strike a deal to publish it ourselves, so we did the next best thing: we designed a great cover for it. This is an amazing work by Mises, better than Road to Serfdom by Hayek and probably' [...]
Everyone knows it’s coming, but when? Everyone recognizes that at some point it’s essential, but the associated benefits and risks are debatable.
One thing we can be reasonable sure of, as we discussed on Monday, is that central bankers are prone to misjudge the future. Indeed, there's plenty of [...]
USA Today is reporting that graduation levels are up in college athletics.
Nearly four of every five athletes — 79% — who entered Division I colleges and universities from 1999 to 2002 got their degrees within six years, according to an NCAA study released Wednesday. That's up a percentage point from a year [...]
I have a new commentary posted at Reason Online looking at how Sen. Dodd's new Agency for Financial Stability would be the financial equivalent for the FBI seeking to take down La Cosa Nostra:
Perhaps Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) thinks of himself as a modern day John Sherman. [...]What's really behind the deficit hawkishness?
MY WORKING theory of the Obama administration's recent deficit tough talk has been that the powers that be believe any new, deficit-funded stimulative measure would be impossible to get through Congress without some nod toward reining in the growing debt. Paul Krugman seems [...]
Most investors know that the S&P 500 hit a record high in October 2007 and a (the?) low in March of this year. But when you break it down by sector, things are a bit more complicated.
Otherwise, for those who are wondering whether there is more [...]
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Some good learnin’ here:
This web site stems from a personal interest in critical thinking and is a collection of links to articles and sites pertaining to numeracy and critical thinking. Links should be good for at least the date posted. After the posting date, link reliability [...]
You've probably noticed that I've been writing more and more on college athletics in general and college football in particular. There's an app a reason for that. I have been reading up on the professional economic literature on college sports for a big project that I am working on. Whenever [...]
Three points to serve as background:
First of all, from the day after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the policies followed by the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. Federal Reserve and the U.S. administrations have been very helpful. They have been good ones. The alternative--standing back and watching the markets deal [...]
Is it just coincidence that this morning a federal judge, who
reportedly is a movie buff, heard the tax conviction appeal of an
actor who played a vampire hunter on the very day that the second installment of the pop culture
phenomenon Twilight film series hit theaters?
1. Air Genius Gary Leff is hailed by CNN.
2. Good post on interest rates (though I am not sure I agree with it). Brad DeLong comments. Critically important stuff and two of the best recent economics blog posts, in some time.
Paul Krugman reads the tea leaves in what looks like the best piece of economic analysis I have read this month. When we do the things we do well, this is the kind of thing we do:
Interest rates: the phantom menace: From various bat squeaks I’ve put together [...]
From the Columbus Dispatch:
Federal officials say the despised Asian carp may have breached an electronic barrier designed to prevent it from invading the Great Lakes and jeopardizing their $7 billion sport fishery.
Officials with the Army Corps of Engineer say Friday that DNA of the giant carp have been found [...]
Housing back in the news
Two reports released this week remind us of the difficulties still confronting the residential real estate market. First, the consumer price index (CPI) showed continued moderation. Yes, the overall number was up 3.4 percent on a monthly annualized basis, and even the core measure ticked up [...]
My colleagues and I at HSH have asked and debated over this question for most of the year: “To what cost are we willing to promote home ownership?” As close to the market as we are, we fully recognize the value of home ownership. However, our lawmakers have steadfastly promoted [...]
Here.
The narrative is more important than the facts. People like the narrative because it pleases them. Not because it’s true. Truth is elusive.
But evidence and facts do matter.
So when someone says the TARP was central to preventing disaster, don’t disagree. Don’t talk about how evil and anti-democratic it was [...]
Image: SpeechSuccess.com
Has anyone ever asked you to be their best man or maid of honor? Did you enjoy it? If so, there may be a job in your future…
1. CA: Positions Available @ Private Women’s Gym
Women’s Athletic Club is looking for [...]
I know. This (HT: Drudge) is how “the system” works. I’m supposed to understand it. But I don’t. It’s a lousy system.
On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”
The section spends two pages [...]
As Tim previously announced, you'll be able to find me in San Antonio this weekend. Here is the link to my conference schedule. I'll also be attending this great looking session.
I'll be presenting our (Tim, Rob, Kurt and John) recreation demand models [...]
The far-left is worried that Obama is excessively influenced by Ludwig von Mises.
I know. It's nuts. Discussion on the forum.
[...]Please stop patting Ben Bernanke on the back
ALAN BLINDER opens a new Washington Post column with what I believe is the conventional wisdom:The Federal Reserve's performance in this long-running financial and economic crisis deserves separate grades. For the early crisis period, from the summer of 2007 until a [...]
Who's paying taxes and just how much, relatively speaking, are they handing over to the Treasury?
That's been the topic of debate since several groups released income tax studies this year.
First, the Tax Foundation reported that the tax burden of the top 1 percent of taxpayers now [...]
In the current New Yorker, James Surowiecki is properly critical of the economic distortions introduced by taxing debt-financed income much more lightly than taxing equity-financed income.
But his policy conclusion is a non sequitur:
Given the weak state of the economy and of housing prices, a wholesale rewriting of the [...]
The WSJ’s Greg Zuckerman has a new book out titled, The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History.
Here is an excerpt from his recent WSJ column on lessons on the subject:
1 Don’t Rely on [...]The Quote of the Day comes to us via Bloomberg’s Alice Schroeder:
“We’re in the midst of a deflationary trend that is temporarily being masked by inventory restocking and free lunches like Cash for Clunkers. Consumers are done with borrowing. They’ll keep refueling the deflation by going through their attics and [...]
Systemic risk oversight is on tap up on the Hill. (Though you wouldn’t know it with all the health care talk.) The House is laying the groundwork for a new division of Treasury called the "Financial Services Oversight Council" to monitor systemic risk. The Senate Banking Committee is going to [...]
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they know about what they imagine they can design.”
F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit. [...]
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Jim has run Bianco Research out of Chicago since November 1990. He has been producing fixed income commentaries with a circulation of hundreds of portfolio managers and traders. Jim’s commentaries have a special emphasis on: money flow characteristics of primary dealers, mutual funds, hedge funds, futures [...]
Would you take investment advice from this man?
WHEN last we checked in on Bill Gross, he was writing about, um, death, before telling us all that assets have way over-performed over the past 50 years. In his latest missive, by contrast, Mr Gross is merely rewriting history:My point [...]
A gang in the remote Peruvian jungle has been killing people for their fat, the police said Thursday, accusing the gang’s members of draining fat from bodies and selling it on the black market for use in cosmetics...
Three suspects have confessed to killing five people for their fat, said Col. Jorge MejĂa, chief of [...]
Here’s a case study.
On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”
The [...]
Once you get through the first three or so minutes of preparatory nonsense, this is actually a pretty powerful little film.Thanks to William Heasley. [...]
China's trade surplus is about more than exchange rates
IN JUST about any analysis of the persistent trade imbalance between China and America, China's currency policy is sure to feature as the principle villain. By pegging its currency to the dollar, China prevents dollar depreciation from playing its natural [...]
There are no major economic reports scheduled today and so a day of the data vacuum awaits. That offers an opportunity to review the latest numbers in the dismal science in search of clues about where we’ve been in recent history and where we might be going.
First up is the [...]
An unlikely explanation for high auto prices
EARLIER this week, I pointed to a surprising increase in vehicle prices in the Consumer Price Index and noted that the rise seemed to be due to Cash for Clunkers, which depleted vehicle inventories. Prices were up because there were fewer cars [...]
The most important single step on the road to economic recovery is the establishment of a 100-percent reserve system against checking deposits. Ideally, the 100-percent reserve would be in gold. FULL ARTICLE by George Reisman
[...]
The writers and intellectuals who made up the most visible contingent of the "Old Right" were in no meaningful sense on the Right at all. They were on the Left, where they had always been. FULL ARTICLE by Jeff Riggenbach
[...]
Cash-economizing inflation is benign because it is an outcome of individuals striving to optimize their property holdings through the voluntary exchange process. Indeed, it improves economic welfare. FULL ARTICLE by Joseph T. Salerno
While the debate is revving up in Washington this week to decide how the government intends to take over the healthcare industry, the passing of my childhood doctor has me remembering how it used to be.
"For four decades, untold numbers of Abilene area residents called Dr. Rorabaugh their" [...]
John's headed to the Southern Economic Association meetings in San Antonio this weekend. Unfortunately I can't make it. At the risk of exposing her to John's typcial meeting antics, I'm sending one of my brilliant Ph.D. students, Carolina Castilla*, in my place. She'll be presenting some work we're doing on consumers' price [...]
Any construction contractor who would build a house by putting up the walls and ceilings before a solid foundation is constructed is asking for trouble.Â
Yet every semester I run across at least one student who wants to take classes concurrently although one is a prerequisite before the other. Prerequisites [...]
Asian currencies continue to sell off vs the $ on the heels of the news yesterday that South Korea said they will look into hot money inflows stemming from the $ carry trade and the Bank of Indonesia said they are looking into the foreign buying of bills. This follows [...]
1. How much will U.S. taxes ever go up?
2. Useful lateral thinking and how it is described by the lateral thinker.
3. The biological bases of business and entrepreneurship.
4. One hour show with me in Second Life; they even did up a Tyler Cowen avatar. [...]
As long as we are on the topic of slavery, why not consider fiction? This science fiction novel has an intriguing economic premise: you're born a slave and you're not free until you can buy yourself back from your owner (which may be a corporation).
It may sound funny [...]
What are the consequences of allowing multi-billion-dollar systemically important multinational corporations to report their assets using proprietary mark-to-model tools involving discredited Monte Carlo simulations? I think we all know the answer to that one. But unbelievably, after such shenanigans contributed enormously to the greatest financial meltdown in living memory, the [...]
Johns Hopkins faculty outline mini-courses on various topics.
Includes "How These Things Work: Business Management Writ Large". I'd skip Berle and Means, but the Mokyr, Hayek, and Chandler volumes are good for autodidacts or anybody else.
Link via Metafilter.
[...]. . . is "interval" or high-intensity training.
It might even help reduce heart disease and Type II diabetes.
[...]Ira Stoll notes that the Miller-Moore amendment has passed. He calls it the “Bair-Miller-Moore Haircut”, and he doesn't like it; I, on the other hand, think it's a spectacularly good idea. This is the meat of it:
Payments to Fully Secured Creditors: Notwithstanding any other provision of law, in' [...]
My fondest memory of Robin Hanson is when we interviewed him for a job and, during his on-campus visit, I gave him some papers I had been working on. Later he emailed me back, before getting the offer I might add, and told me the papers weren't very good and [...]
The best of the rest of the economics web
TODAY'S recommended economics writing:• Metropolitan budgets are on the brink of catastrophe. (New Republic) • Income and poverty in American counties, nicely mapped. (Economix)• Basic background deficit math. (Brad DeLong) • Google invents a city, puts it on Google maps. [...]
There's been some discussion of how the GDP estimates for 2009Q3 might be revised downward in light of the September trade release [1]. e-Forecasting has presented its latest estimates up to October, and Macroeconomic Advisers through September. Macroeconomic Advisers writes:
[...]
If you want to buy a book or DVD from the Web site of Writer David Irving, you'll no longer be able to use your American Express card, and that wasn't Irving's idea. It was the idea, evidently, of New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who represents the [...]
Charles Goyette has spent much of his life thinking about money. He has contemplated how it works, how governments manipulate it, and how it stores value.
Goyette, a radio show host, precious metals pro, and libertarian, shares his views on fate of the US dollar in [...]
Here is a scatter graph comparing the seriously delinquency rate for mortgage loans vs. unemployment rate for all states. The seriously delinquent rate include 90+ days delinquent loans, and loans in the foreclosure process for Q3 2009 (Source: MBA).
OK, it’s not quite the “magazine cover indicator”…
…but surely this must be telling us something about the gold market (lol)?
Hat tip LOLFed
Source:
Cats for Gold
[www.catsforgold.com]
There are so many thing here that require an ass whupping I just don’t know where to begin:
• Why is there even such a thing as a Microsoft Store?
• Is this an example of their innovation?
• Why is the staff being forced to clap rhythmically — did they [...]
While initial unemployment claims were technically “flat” last week, the number was still over 500,000 — a level the unemployment indicator has remained at for 53 straight weeks. Despite any improvements we’ve seen in the economy, it appears as though employers just aren’t hiring…outside the mortgage industry that is.
With [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent this morning to the Washington Post:
Harold Meyerson is confused about U.S. trade with China (”A marriage made in China,” Nov. 18).
As incontrovertible evidence that American exporters and producers are harmed by U.S.-China trade, he points to the fact that, since the 1998 agreement [...]
Economist Tsung-Mei Cheng has developed three Universal Laws of Health Care Systems. Â These are:
No matter how good the health care in a particular country, people will complain about it. No matter how much money is spent on health care, the doctors and hospitals will argue it is not enough. The last reform always failed.Source: [...]
This evening at 7pm ET:
Click on graph for larger image in new window.So the American Economic Association has produced the "Economists Calendar" in celebration of the 125th Anniversary of it founding.
Many readers of this blog (both those who consider themselves critics and those who consider themselves friends) have often asserted three things: (1) Austrian economists are ignored in the profession; [...]
