The employment report is often said to be a lagging indicator, but some elements look toward the future and those signals aren’t encouraging. The length of the average workweek offers clues to when companies may begin hiring. Even if the rate of decline in jobs is moderating a bit from lows hit earlier this year, the addition of new workers seems to be a way off. Before companies hire, they generally push for new workers to work more hours first. But his month, the average workweek dropped to just 33 hours, a historic low. “The bottom line for the economy: despite signs in other…
-
WSJ: Real time economics
-
Jobs Data Bode Ill for the Future
2 Jul 2009 | 1:00 pm -
Jobs Data Should Mute Inflation, Rate-Hike Worries
2 Jul 2009 | 10:07 amThe grinding gloom of the June payrolls report shows why inflation fears are overdone, and why it’s a pretty safe bet the Fed’s policy stance faces no imminent changes. Bernanke The U.S. economy lost 467,000 jobs in June, after a 322,000 decline in May, with the unemployment rate rising to 9.5% from 9.4% the month before. The report prompted hedged reactions from economists. It was worse than what they predicted, but it still represents a continued moderation of job losses relative to earlier in the recession — a good thing. But hours worked and earnings don’t look… -
Economists React: Jobs the ‘Achilles’ Heel’ of Recovery
2 Jul 2009 | 7:58 amEconomists and others weigh in on the larger-than-expected drop in nonfarm payrolls. This was a very ugly labor market report, and there is no amount of lipstick that can improve its image. Indeed, not only does it suggest that the pace of job losses in the U.S. remains very high, it bucks the trend of four consecutive months of improvement in the pace of job losses. Moreover, with conditions in the U.S. economy continuing to be very weak, there is little to suggest that a turnaround in U.S. labor market conditions is on the horizon. –Millan L. B. Mulraine, TD Securities Yes, the drop… -
Broader Unemployment Rate Hit 16.5% in June
2 Jul 2009 | 6:06 amAs job losses accelerated in June, the unemployment rate ticked up 0.1 percentage point to 9.5%, the highest level since August 1983. But another more comprehensive gauge of unemployment also continued to tick up. The government’s broader measure, known as the “U-6″ for its data classification, hit 16.5% in June, 0.1 percentage point higher than March. The comprehensive measure of labor underutilization accounts for people who have stopped looking for work or who can’t find full-time jobs. The index had posted a 0.6 percentage point jump in May. The pace of increase has begun… -
Secondary Sources: Fifty Little Hoovers, Iraq, Geithner vs. Summers
2 Jul 2009 | 5:45 amA roundup of economic news from around the Web. Fifty Little Hoovers: The Economist’s Free Exchange blog looks at how state policies are hampering a potential recovery. “State budget policies are sharply contractionary at this point. Despite allocations of federal aid to states, services are being cut, state employees are being laid off, and taxes are being raised in order to balance the budgets of local governments constitutionally unable to run deficits. It’s not at all clear that the federal stimulus will entirely compensate for state-level fiscal tightening, which means…
-
Twitter: WSJ Econ
-
WSJ_Econ: Jobs Data Bode Ill for the Future http://tinyurl.com/lua944
2 Jul 2009 | 1:37 pmWSJ_Econ: Jobs Data Bode Ill for the Future http://tinyurl.com/lua944 -
WSJ_Econ: Jobs Data Should Mute Inflation, Rate-Hike Worries http://tinyurl.com/lskpsk
2 Jul 2009 | 10:38 amWSJ_Econ: Jobs Data Should Mute Inflation, Rate-Hike Worries http://tinyurl.com/lskpsk -
WSJ_Econ: Economists React: Jobs the ‘Achilles’ Heel’ of Recovery http://tinyurl.com/lkq9v3
2 Jul 2009 | 8:08 amWSJ_Econ: Economists React: Jobs the ‘Achilles’ Heel’ of Recovery http://tinyurl.com/lkq9v3 -
WSJ_Econ: Broader Unemployment Rate Hit 16.5% in June http://tinyurl.com/npl9wx
2 Jul 2009 | 6:37 amWSJ_Econ: Broader Unemployment Rate Hit 16.5% in June http://tinyurl.com/npl9wx -
WSJ_Econ: Amid Recession Economists Embrace Haiku http://tinyurl.com/n2z2kd
2 Jul 2009 | 5:36 amWSJ_Econ: Amid Recession Economists Embrace Haiku http://tinyurl.com/n2z2kd
-
naked capitalism
-
WaPo cancels paid White House-Congress-lobbyist hook up
3 Jul 2009 | 4:41 amSubmitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more questionable in Washington, then along comes this (hat tip Tom). Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive "salon" at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors. This is not a joke, it was a serious plan whereby the… -
Links 7/3/09
3 Jul 2009 | 12:35 amNew dinosaurs found in Australia BBC. So Australia has long had different critters than everywhere else, it seems.Computer reveals stone tablet 'handwriting' in a flash New ScientistFootage of last ever Michael Jackson rehearsal released Times Online. Yes, this is morbid, ibut I was particularly taken with his dancing. He looks so gaunt. But all that plastic surgery did not ruin his visage as a stage face. New York City Sees Slide in Tourism Wall Street JournalBack to the Stimulus Debate: W, Timing, the States, and Baselines Menzie Chinn, Econbrowser. Someone is trying to still say we will… -
Willem Buiter: "Why Zombie Banks Will Need More Money"
3 Jul 2009 | 12:01 amWillem Buiter touches on the state of bank lending and proposals for financial services industry supervision. Enjoy! -
More Book Review Candidates....
2 Jul 2009 | 11:23 pmAny takers? Some smart publisher types have noticed our reviews and are sending blurbs.If interested, ping me at yves@nakedcapitalism.com with your coordinates and a bit about your background. Thanks!The first is A COLOSSAL FAILURE OF COMMON SENSE: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers by former Lehman VP Lawrence G McDonald. McDonald explores the trillion dollar question of the financial crisis: What the hell happened at Lehman Brothers and why was it allowed to fail? He gives us a real insiders view into the mind of Dick Fuld and the other Brahmins at the top whose addiction… -
Even More Sobering Unemployment Readings
2 Jul 2009 | 10:04 pmThe dour consumer sentiment readings said that the great unwashed are smarter than the financial talking heads. They had ceased to be impressed with the "green shoots" theory. Lo and behold, worse than expected employment data has proven them right. We've pointed out that the Carmen Reinhart/Kenneth Rogoff analysis of past severe financial crises suggests that our unemployment rate will peak at over 11%. Given the quality of our policy responses, I see no reason to expect us to do better than the norm. But 11% plus does not seem to (yet) be in anyone's spreadsheet.David Rosenberg, who has…
-
NYT: World Business
-
A Subdued Trading Day in Asia and Europe
3 Jul 2009 | 8:26 amThe declines in Asia’s stock markets were more muted than those on Wall Street and in Europe, but they illustrated the same point: That a pullback is in full swing after a three-month rally. -
Unauthorized Trades Cost London Oil Broker Millions
3 Jul 2009 | 7:24 amAn employee at the London oil broker made the transactions, which also contributed to a spike in prices. -
Neighbor’s Shadow Still Large in Slovakia
3 Jul 2009 | 6:35 amSixteen years after its “velvet divorce” from the Czech Republic, Slovakia is a nation still exuding uncertainty. -
Spotlight: Caution Kept Icelandic Bank Clear of the Worst
3 Jul 2009 | 5:57 amMargeir Petursson, the chairman and founder of MP Bank, saw the looming crisis long before others did. -
Joblessness Hits 9.5%, Deflating Recovery Hopes
2 Jul 2009 | 11:44 pmThe pace of job losses quickened last month with the American economy shedding 467,000 jobs, as unemployment rose to its highest level in 26 years.
-
NYT: Paul Krugman
-
It's a weird, weird, weird, weird world
3 Jul 2009 | 6:03 amHeadline: Dollar Is Buoyed by Weak Jobs Data. -
Secrets of the WSJ
3 Jul 2009 | 6:00 amThis morning's Wall Street Journal opinion section contains a lot of what one expects to see. There's an opinion piece making a big fuss over the fake scandal at the EPA. There's an editorial claiming that the latest job figures prove the failure of Obama's economic plan - something I dealt with in the [...] -
Yes, we can
2 Jul 2009 | 3:43 pmGet more or less universal coverage, that is. The CBO scoring on an incomplete bill sent everyone into a tizzy - and also led to an avalanche of bad reporting, with claims that it said terrible things about the public option. (There was no public option in the bill.) Now the real thing has been scored [...] -
Smells like deflation
2 Jul 2009 | 3:37 pmThe grim jobs number wasn't the only scary thing in today's BLS report. Here's the rate of wage change over the past three months, expressed as an annual rate: Bear in mind that inflation usually runs below the rate of wage change, thanks to productivity growth. So we're really heading into Japanese-style deflation territory. -
Carbon tariffs - the legal aspects
1 Jul 2009 | 5:51 pmTestimony on the issue from a real trade lawyer (thanks to Richard Baldwin, who pointed me to this document). The bottom line: In sum, if carefully calibrated along the lines suggested above, carbon equalization measures at the border, imposed on certain imports, can be modeled in compliance with WTO non-discrimination rules and/or the WTO's environmental exception. So [...]
-
alpha.sources
-
The Noose Tightens in Japan
26 Jun 2009 | 1:22 amThe latest piece of news of Japan does not make for happy reading I am afraid and although we have seen some tentative signs, as of late, of a stabilisation this has to be very preoccupying for Japanese policy makers. As Edward pointed out recently, the rise in consumer confidence and sentiment in general is masked by a strange absense of any kind of material pick up in real economic indicators and now we get the follow blow to the kidneys. Japan’s consumer prices fell at a record pace in May, adding to the risk that deflation will become entrenched and hamper a rebound from the… -
The Economist on Ageing Populations
25 Jun 2009 | 11:02 amI should of course extend an apology to my readers for not posting more in a week when Macro Man has been speaking of a "catalyst" and when both the Fed and the ECB made important announcements (although I am not so sure what the Fed really changed, if anything). However, I too am a slave of the real world and one important customer at the small shop I am working in suddenly wanted a whole lot of stuff done, all in a horrible hurry, so I have been desked all week. So sitting here on a Thursday evening thinking about whether I could wring out something interesting about this week's events it… -
Germany's Shrinking East
20 Jun 2009 | 3:02 amHere at Alpha.Sources and elsewhere, I am harping a lot about the economic effect of demographic changes. However, demographic changes not only entail economic changes, but also social changes and quite often these two go hand in hand. A recent piece by Nicholas Kulish in the NYT provides a timely reminder to that point as it describes the effects of Germany's broken demographics in the context of its Eastern premises. In this, the 20th year since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is preparing for a host of celebrations and commemorations leading to the… -
How to Get it Wrong (Big Time)
20 Jun 2009 | 1:39 amIt is not often that you come along a piece with which you disagree so strenuously as I do with the analysis fielded by MoneyMorning's Martin Hutchinson on Germany, so when it happens you should of course not miss the opportunity to pick a fight. Now, I should tread carefully here since Mr. Hutchinson is a a man with a remarkable track record as an economic and investment analyst and while I certainly do not want to put myself in the same situation as Niall Ferguson in his infamous tête-á-tête with Paul Krugman, I would still humbly submit the point that Martin is on the… -
Another Round in Latvia?
16 Jun 2009 | 11:06 amI will forgive my readers if they think that my coverage of the recent debacle surrounding the potential for an imminent devaluation in Latvia has been a bit asymmetric. I mean, here I was; throwing fuel on the bonfire when it looked as if the cracks would make the edifice tumble and now as it seems that those cracks have been temporarily mended, I have gone silent. Well, not entirely then, and this post is thus to show that I actually do attempt to provide a balanced coverage. Consequently, it seems as if the defences will hold in Latvia, but the apparent vote of confidence from the IMF and…
-
re: The Auditors
-
PwC Global Board: “Risk And Quality Top Priorities”
From the PricewaterhouseCoopers International Global Board to PwC Partners Worldwide May 5, 2009 Minutes of April 22-24 Meeting of the Global Board in New York, NY An excerpt: Risk and Quality Related Issues Risk and Quality is at the top of the Board's list of priority topics. We were updated on developments in India. ... -
Taking Your Pulse
Taking Your Pulse Wednesday 6/26, Between 10-Midnight CST The Top Searches landing on this blog. bdo international espirito bearing point pwc risk management big 4 accounting blog big 4 layoffs 2009 big four starting salaries cpa designation blog deloitte courtroom view network ernst deloitte audit new york deloitte layoffs march 2009 deloitte sec alert 2009 do big 4 hire older students e&y ... -
Satyam, SocMed, BDO International, and Sunshine
It's been a very hot few weeks here in Chicago. After last weekend's thunderstorms, we've had temperatures between 85-90 F or so all week. (That's 30-32 C for you metric folks.) Needless to say, Rosie Rott and I have been drinking a lot of liquids. I feel like a broken record ... -
Accountants And Social Media Dream Panel @MDBIZEXPO
I had the very good fortune of being invited to participate in a dream panel at the Maryland Association of CPAs Business Expo last week. The panel was moderated by Bill Sullivan of the MACPAs and included Edith Orenstein of FEI, Will Burns of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, Alexandra ... -
BDO International Dodges A Bullet, But Threat Still Remains…
Update: June 18, 2009 Less than an hour after Thomas finished his closing arguments in a trial in which he sought to hold BDO International liable for a 2007 verdict he won against its U.S. affiliate, the six-person state court jury in Miami returned a defense verdict. The jury's finding that ...
-
American Prospect: beat the press
-
The Weak Dollar Does Not Support Higher Energy Prices!!!!!
3 Jul 2009 | 12:24 pmThe pricing of oil in dollars creates an incredible amount of confusion among people who should know better. For example, USA Today tells us that: "how long the weak dollar can support energy prices, if demand is still weak, remains to be seen." This one deserves a big "huh?" If the dollar falls in value against other currencies, then other things equal, oil should rise in price measured in dollars. That would be necessary to keep it from falling in price measured in euros, yen, and everything else. If the dollar is falling in value against other currencies, then the dollar price of oil must… -
The Chinese are Morons Argument
3 Jul 2009 | 9:54 amThe argument that China is worried that it will lose money on its dollar holding because of a fall in the value of the dollar implies that the Chinese are morons. There can be no doubt that the dollar will fall and that the Chinese will lose money on their dollar holdings. The only thing that keeps the dollar from falling now is the decision by the Chinese government to buys hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Of course China can keep the dollar from ever falling as long as it is prepared to buy ever more dollars, just as it could have kept shares of Pets.com at $100 if it continually… -
The Employment Report: It's Even Worse Than It Looks
3 Jul 2009 | 7:31 amThere were few people in the media still trying to spin the "green shoots of recovery" story following the release of the June employment report yesterday, but most news reports managed to overlook one of the most important items in the data. The downturn has led employees to cut back both jobs and reduce hours for those who still have jobs. In June the economy reportedly lost 467,000 jobs in June. This number was considered a surprising jump from the 322,000 rate of job loss in May (it should not have been a surprise, given that weekly unemployment insurance filings averaged well over… -
Is the European Union Being Too Harsh on Latvia
3 Jul 2009 | 6:56 amLatvia was one of the great bubble countries of the world, until last year, borrowing vast sums (denominated in euros) from west European banks. The country is now seeing its economy contract at close to a 20 percent annual rate. The European Union is offering to help (how else can those loans to the banks be repaid?), but is demanding that Latvia move quickly to reduce its deficit. The NYT reported that the EU relaxed the conditions on its loans, allowing Latvia to reach a deficit target of 3.0 percent of GDP in 2012 rather than 2011. The NYT notes a controversy over whether this pace of… -
Morgan Stanley Profits: The Story on Risk Goes Both Ways
1 Jul 2009 | 11:23 pmThe NYT noted that one factor depressing Morgan Stanley's profit last quarter was its improved credit standing, which increased the market value of its debt. The NYT implied that this was a peculiar accounting rule. The rule may be peculiar, but it goes both wars. In prior quarters, Morgan Stanley increased its profits (or lowered its losses) by writing down the market vale of its debt as its credit quality deteriorated. --Dean Baker
-
Robert Reich's Blog
-
"What Can I Do?"
25 Jun 2009 | 12:30 pmSomeone recently approached me at the cheese counter of a local supermarket, asking "what can I do?" At first I thought the person was seeking advice about a choice of cheese. But I soon realized the question was larger than that. It was: what can I do about the way things are going in Washington?People who voted for Barack Obama tend to fall into one of two camps: Trusters, who believe he's a good man with the right values and he's doing everything he can; and cynics, who have become disillusioned with his bailouts of Wall Street, flimsy proposals for taming the Street, willingness to give… -
Why the Critics of a Public Option for Health Care Are Wrong
23 Jun 2009 | 10:17 pmWithout a public option, the other parties that comprise America's non-system of health care -- private insurers, doctors, hospitals, drug companies, and medical suppliers -- have little or no incentive to supply high-quality care at a lower cost than they do now.Which is precisely why the public option has become such a lightening rod. The American Medical Association is dead-set against it, Big Pharma rejects it out of hand, and the biggest insurance companies won't consider it. No other issue in the current health-care debate is as fiercely opposed by the medical establishment and their… -
Memo to the President: What You Must Do To Save Universal Health Care
19 Jun 2009 | 3:39 pmMr. President:Momentum for universal health care is slowing dramatically on Capitol Hill. Moderates are worried, Republicans are digging in, and the medical-industrial complex is firing up its lobbying and propaganda machine.But, as you know, the worst news came days ago when the Congressional Budget Office weighed in with awful projections about how much the leading healthcare plans would cost and how many Americans would still be left out in the cold. Yet these projections didn't include the savings that a public option would generate by negotiating lower drug prices, doctor fees, and… -
Does the Obama Plan for Reforming Wall Street Measure Up?
18 Jun 2009 | 8:00 amIn a word: No.The plan doesn't stop stop bankers from making huge, risky bets with other peoples’ money. It does increase capital requirements and oversight, but it doesn't require bankers to take their pay in long-term stock options or warrants, and it doesn't even hint that banks should go back to being partnerships instead of publicly-held corporations.All this means traders still have very incentive to place big and often wildly risky bets as long as the potential winnings are big enough, and top executives have very little incentive to monitor what traders are up to as long as the… -
The Three Essentials of Financial Reform
16 Jun 2009 | 11:05 amAs the White House unveils its long-awaited proposals to prevent another Wall Street meltdown in the future, keep a lookout for three essentials. Without them the Street will revert to its old ways as soon as the coast clears. In fact, now that the government has bailed out the Street, the biggest banks will take even larger and more irresponsible risks because they’re officially too big to fail. So these three reforms are critical.1. Stop bankers from making huge, risky bets with other peoples’ money. At the least, require they back their bets with a large percentage of their own…
-
Grasping Reality With Both Hands
-
Forensic Table Reading: Bush CEA Forecast Edition
3 Jul 2009 | 10:09 amIn email, lurkers are questioning my claim that: Forecasting the Obama Economy: ...what happened to the Mankiw CEA over the winter of 2003-2004, when high politics appears to have reached down into the forecast, changed the table for payroll employment (and only payroll employment: the rest of the forecast is not out of line with contemporary professional forecasts), and produced an estimate for December 2004 (a) inconsistent with the rest of the forecast, and (b) high by 2.3 million in its estimate of payroll employment--all because Karl Rove and company thought it important to avoid… -
Origins of the Current Financial Crisis
3 Jul 2009 | 9:23 amIn which Barry Ritholtz encounters the unreliable Stan Liebowitz saying very strange and very false things about the mortgage market: Zero Down Is a Foreclosure Factor: There is a kind of weird OpEd in today’s WSJ by Stan Liebowitz. The professor makes the incredible discovery that zero down payments, 100% LTV financings tend to slide in great numbers into foreclosure.... This is analysis by gross over-simplification. Not quite reductio ad absurdum, but close. Unfortunately, it leads to conclusions that are at best only partially correct. And that conclusion? The problem has been Prime,… -
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page: Paul Krugman Asks a Question I Have Never Heard a Good Answer to...
3 Jul 2009 | 9:18 amPaul Krugman wonders: Secrets of the WSJ: This morning’s Wall Street Journal opinion section contains a lot of what one expects to see. There’s an opinion piece making a big fuss over the fake scandal at the EPA. There’s an editorial claiming that the latest job figures prove the failure of Obama’s economic plan — something I dealt with in the Times. All of this follows on yesterday’s editorial asserting that the Minnesota senatorial election was stolen. All of this is par for the course; the WSJ editorial page has been like this for 35 years. Nonetheless,… -
A Post-Modern Media Revenue Model...
3 Jul 2009 | 8:46 amAnd Lindsay Beyerstein has quotes: Washington Post's pay-to-play flyer : Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it. What is guaranteed is a collegial evening, with Obama administration officials, Congress members, business leaders, advocacy leaders and other select minds typically on the guest list of 20 or less.... Offered at $25,000 per sponsor, per Salon. Maximum of two sponsors per Salon. Underwriters’ CEO or Executive Director participates in the discussion. Underwriters appreciatively acknowledged in printed invitations… -
Does John McCain Have a Legitimate Place in American Politics? I Say No
3 Jul 2009 | 7:54 amThis is why: Michelle Goldberg on Sarah Palin: Is She a Narcissist?: On Thursday, CBS News had a small scoop.... After McCain’s chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, rejected a request by Palin to reply to a report that her husband, Todd, had been a member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, Palin came forward with a preposterous excuse.... Secession, she insisted—despite all available evidence—is not part of the party’s platform, and besides, Todd “was only a 'member' bc independent alaskans too often check that 'Alaska Independent' box on voter…
-
cool global BIZ
-
Michael Jackson: Media Freak Show, or Global & Cultural Revolutionary?
3 Jul 2009 | 12:43 pmYes, Michael Jackson was king of the bizarre. Yes, the criminal allegations of child molestation are hard to ignore, even though a Santa Barbara jury acquitted him. But in my mind, the most striking aspect of Jackson's shortlived life was his role as a racial radical who enjoyed universal appeal... -
Beat This: The Michael Jackson Brand
1 Jul 2009 | 1:07 pm"Jacko No More" by lastyearsgirl, under Creative Commons license on flickr.com Count on academics and consultants to weigh in on the death of pop-cult phenom Michael Jackson. In my previous post ("Michael Jackson: Media Freak Show, or Global & Cultural Revolutionary?"), I wondered how the man in the mirror and... -
Woo Hoo, Womenomics! Businesswomen Hold Up Half the Sky
17 Jun 2009 | 6:03 pmREDWOOD CITY, California, U.S.A. -- A generation or two ago, fearless feminists fought for equal pay and equal opportunities for women in the modern workforce. Then, for a myriad of sociopolitical reasons covered by scholars and the media, the next wave of young women shied away from the "militant" feminist... -
Britney, Begone. Instead, Check Out the World Economic Forum's Davos Debates
15 Jun 2009 | 1:01 pm"Britney Spears Concert - Inspired by Bollywood" by Anirudh Koul, under Creative Commons license on flickr.com. In the middle-class realms of the West and East, where the cost of an espresso would feed a poor Third World family for days, wealth and comfort equals apathy. We lead such pampered and... -
Scenes of urban contemporary Beijing
13 Jun 2009 | 10:17 pm"Beijing" photo by Svennevenn, under Creative Commons license on flickr.com. BEIJING, China -- Interview a hundred China experts, and you'll hear a hundred views of the emerging superpower. China, the economic juggernaut. China, the rising geopolitical threat. China, the human-rights violator. Here's one slant you don't see or hear as...
-
Calculated Risk
-
U.K.: Britons Pay Down Mortgage Debt in Q1
3 Jul 2009 | 10:38 amFrom the Telegraph: UK homeowners pay back a record £8.1bn of mortgage debt Britons injected £8.1bn to pay off their mortgage debt in the first three months of 2009, the Bank of England said on Friday ... The figure compares with a £7.7bn injection in the final three months of 2008 ..."Sharply falling house prices have made housing equity withdrawal increasingly unattractive, while very tight credit conditions have made it more difficult to carry out the process as well as to take out new mortgages," said Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight. "In addition, ever lower… -
FDIC Bank Failures by Week
3 Jul 2009 | 7:39 amBy popular request ...The FDIC closed seven more banks yesterday, and the following graph shows bank failures by week for 2009. Click on graph for larger image in new window.So far there have been 52 FDIC bank failures in 2009.It appears the pace has picked up lately (12 bank closings over the last two weeks). Note: Week 1 ends Jan 9th.This is nothing compared to the S&L crisis. There were 28 weeks during the S&L crisis when regulators closed 10 or more banks, and the peak was April 20, 1998 with 60 bank closures (there were 7 separate weeks with more than 30 closures in the late '80s and… -
SEC may Reinstate Uptick Rule for Short Selling
3 Jul 2009 | 6:40 amFrom the NY Times: S.E.C. May Reinstate Rules for Short-Selling Stocks The Securities and Exchange Commission appears poised to reverse itself and reinstate rules that would make shorting stocks ... somewhat more difficult. ...the most likely outcome may be for the S.E.C. to reinstate ... the uptick rule ...“I don’t mind what I see as minor inconveniences,” said Whitney Tilson, an author and managing partner of T2 Partners, “if it will get rid of the critics who like to blame short-sellers every time a stock goes down.” Some people will always blame the short sellers. -
The Krugman Blues
2 Jul 2009 | 8:41 pmA little night music: Loudon Wainwright III performs 'The Krugman Blues' at Madison Square Park in NYC (June 17, 2009)Note: The last music video I posted featuring an economist was Merle Hazard's discussion with John Taylor (very funny).UPDATE: And here is Krugman's column tonight: That ’30s Show Since the recession began, the U.S. economy has lost 6 ½ million jobs — and as that grim employment report confirmed, it’s continuing to lose jobs at a rapid pace. Once you take into account the 100,000-plus new jobs that we need each month just to keep up with a growing population, we’re… -
Another Involuntary Landlord and Summary
2 Jul 2009 | 5:48 pmA little sublease space in D.C.Click on photo for larger image in new window.Photo Credit: a reader in dcTaken today, July 2, 2009. Employment Here is a repeat of one of the graphs this morning: This graph shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms (as opposed to the number of jobs lost).The current recession is now the 2nd worst recession since WWII in percentage terms - and also in terms of the unemployment rate (only early '80s recession was worse).And a few posts:Employment Report: 467K Jobs Lost, 9.5% Unemployment Rate Unemployment: Stress Test…
-
Wall St Examiner: Winter (Economic & Market) Watch
-
Actionable Be On Your Toes
3 Jul 2009 | 9:30 amIf you are trading this market especially on the long side, be on your toes. This week, the Fed fund rate popped to 7%, indicating the possibility that someone in the system is highly stressed. The last time that happened was just before the Lehman Brothers collapse. In this rather complacent environment I would not [...]View the full article -
Actionable Party Like It Was 2007
2 Jul 2009 | 7:43 amYou can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. - Warren BuffettYesterday’s podcast is available to subscribers gratis here. If you want to skip my personal adventures or misadventures, we pick up my game theory and more detail on my market outlook at about 11:00 and it goes about twenty minutes. [...]View the full article -
Radio Free Wall Street
1 Jul 2009 | 2:16 pmLee Adler and Russ Winter discuss the coming buying opportunity and what will get us there. Not a subscriber? Click here to hear a free preview. Listen to any podcast prior to March 2009. Click here for archive. Be surprised! To subscribe and hear this podcast right now, click here! Subscribers only. Enter your login when prompted. Radio Free Wall Street Podcast 7/1/09 [33:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Click here to start a 30 day risk free trial to the Wall Street Examiner Professional Edition Fed Report. -
Actionable Lathered Up
1 Jul 2009 | 2:02 pmMarket is lathered up this morning about “good” economic news including pending home sales. I offer the following existing home sales (pending is an index) chart (from Calculated Risk) for readers to get a perspective on this.In the podcast today (and one in which we actually had something to say) I went into my game [...]View the full article -
Actionable Clues from 1937-1938
30 Jun 2009 | 10:27 amI offer a chart (click to enlarge) from the 1937-1938 period that might offer clues as to what to expect going forward.Evident is a big B to C thrust after the Panic’s first bottom. We may now be on the early right angle at C. This in turn was followed by a quick gap away [...]View the full article
-
Crooked Timber
-
Rousseau podcast
3 Jul 2009 | 1:26 amA couple of weeks ago, I gave a public lecture in Bristol on the subject of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his continued relevance to modern society and political philosophy. Undoubtedly mileages will vary on that question, but anyone who wants to hear my take on it can listen to a podcast . (The lecture is included as part of the “Philosophy at Bristol” series which you can access via its blog or at iTunes .) -
What’s up with Political Theory?
2 Jul 2009 | 2:22 pmI asked this question over at the Monkey Cage, a political science blog that I also contribute to, and was greeted with a resounding silence (political theorists perhaps being disinclined to read heavily pol-sci oriented blogs). So I’m asking it here. What exactly is happening at the journal, Political Theory? I understand that the editor, Mary Dietz, has been asked to step down, and that Mark Bevir has been asked to step in, but beyond that I know nothing – all sorts of rumours and claims of coups, decisions-by-fiat etc are swirling around at the Political Theory Rumor Mill but… -
Helprin on EconTalk
2 Jul 2009 | 10:57 amHaving knocked Mark “digital barbarism” Helprin around in a trio of posts – in one of which I remarked that the guy should probably listen to EconTalk to learn that libertarians are actually skeptical about the merits of copyright extension – I am duty-bound to report that Helprin was just a guest on EconTalk. (If you don’t know, EconTalk is a very George Mason-y econ podcast, hosted by Russ Roberts. It’s often quite good, in my opinion.) Man, I just knew Roberts was going to turn out to be a big fan of Helprin’s fiction. Also, Roberts’ podcast… -
Washington Post Really Crashes and Burns Edition
2 Jul 2009 | 8:30 amPolitico For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, non-confrontational access to “those powerful few” — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors. The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and… -
The Mitey Walzer
2 Jul 2009 | 6:00 amI’ve made a number of rather harsh comments about Michael Walzer on CT in the recent past, motivated by his twin tendencies to a) reinvent the wheel with respect to international humanitarian law and b) produce arguments which seem to be tailored like a Versace evening gown to fit round the voluptuous curves of Israeli foreign policy. In this article in the New York Review of Books, however, he revisits the issue of “human shields” and although I still find it frustrating that he’s not referencing the legal literature at all, it’s clear that he’s not simply…
-
Dealbreaker
-
Write-Offs: 07.02.09
2 Jul 2009 | 11:15 amUS Marshals Seize Madoff Penthouse Property [CBS] Sir Stanford's request to unfreeze funds for legal fees denied [FTAlphaville] Comment(s) of the Day: Posted by guest, Jul 02, 2009 11:37AM The high collar says "I'm a sophisticated lady," but the low cut screams "put it between the bags." And the response: Posted by guest, Jul 02, 2009 11:39AM @15 you think theyre big enough to TF? Looks like she might need to use the hand bridge. Job of the Week: A hedge fund is looking for a "brilliant junior programmer." You. [DB Career Center] SlimJim Factory Explosion Causes Shortages Nationwide [NYP]… -
Dear Third Point People
2 Jul 2009 | 11:00 amSponsored Topics: United States - California - Society and Culture - Arts - Scotland -
Bonus Watch '09: Citi
2 Jul 2009 | 10:47 amSupposedly Citi 2nd year second tier S&T analysts are "pulling" 60k bonuses. For those keeping track at home and believing these numbers, this would be in line with the $42k goody-bags being awarded to the Big C's second tier first year rainmakers. Sponsored Topics: Citibank - Business - Bank of America - Sports - Bank -
Citi Gives GE The Heisman
2 Jul 2009 | 9:46 amFaced with the possibility of unloading all or part of its credit card business, Vik and the boys decided they were not going to accept any low-ball offers from the likes of Jeff Immelt. While contemplating either an outright sale of the unit to GE or joining their credit card operations in a joint venture, Citi wanted a premium for its branded and private label cards. As delinquency rates head towards multi-decade highs, this seems like perfect timing for Citi to rely on its ability to raise rates enough to account for its rigorous underwriting standards. Or maybe they just know the… -
Swine Flu At Deutsche Bank? (UPDATE)
2 Jul 2009 | 9:40 amAs previously mentioned, at least one Citi employee has caught the pig sniffles. Apparently the Germans may have also gotten in on the fun. One entire section of the trading floor has been converted into a "bubble boy" type facility. No word on moops or which specific desk went on a Mexican bender. Update: Not sure who your sources are for you posts on the swine flu, but there is no "bubble" on our trading floor. Our floors look the same, and are operating the same, as they normally do. Ted Meyer Director, Head of Communications - Americas Deutsche Bank Sponsored Topics: Mexico - Swine…
-
Econbrowser
-
Back to the Stimulus Debate: W, Timing, the States, and Baselines
2 Jul 2009 | 8:45 pmA "W" Recession? Martin Feldstein has recently raised the possibility that we might experience a relapse into recession (a beautiful symmetrical W), with the next dip in 2010. In my view, this means (1) we should have opted for a bigger and better composed stimulus package, and (2) the timing of expenditures in the stimulus package might not be as problematic as many commentators have indicated. From Bloomberg: "I think we"re going to see a temporary substantial improvement," Feldstein, the former head of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Reagan administration adviser, said today… -
No rebound for autos
1 Jul 2009 | 6:25 pmAutos are worth watching as one sector where economic growth could resume first. But despite what others are saying, I don't believe that it's happening yet. Some analysts seemed to take comfort in the fact that the decrease in auto sales from June 08 to June 09 was more modest than the year-over-year decline for earlier months had been. But that's primarily a reflection of the fact that June 08 had been a significant deterioration relative to earlier months of 08. Data source: Wardsauto.com Americans bought fewer light vehicles in June 09 than they did in May 09, and that holds for every… -
A V-shaped recession?
1 Jul 2009 | 2:41 pmAs James Morley has pointed out, often a sharp economic downturn is followed by an equally sharp economic recovery. One reason for that is the liquidation of inventories that accompanies any recession and restocking that takes place in recovery. What should we expect this time? The graph below shows inventory investment as a percentage of U.S. GDP since 1947. There's been an improvement over time in inventory management, which I captured with a downward-sloping linear time trend. [Incidentally, this graph and many of the calculations that follow are constructed using the original nominal… -
The Newest Data on Foreign Exchange Reserves
30 Jun 2009 | 1:56 pmThe IMF has released its estimates for 2009Q1 reserves (COFER data). Below I update and extend my recent post on the dollar as a reserve currency. Figure 1: US dollar (blue, right scale), US dollar plus 60% of unallocated reserves (green, right scale), and log nominal value of US dollar against major currencies (red, left scale). NBER defined recession dates shaded gray. Source: IMF, COFER, June 30, 2009, Federal Reserve via FREDII, NBER and author's calculations. Notice that the USD share has not declined, despite a decline in the dollar's value against major currencies. Following Brad… -
New Papers on International Finance: Crises, Puzzles, and Exchange Rates
29 Jun 2009 | 10:40 pmSummertime is conference season, especially for those of us who don't live close to a major airport hub. The first conference I attended was the NBER's International Seminar on Macroeconomics, co-organized by Lucrezia Reichlin and Ken West. The conference was broken up into several sections: Financial Crises, International Economic Puzzles, Exchange Rates and Financial Development. Lot's of interesting papers, and plenty of stimulating discussion. I can't do justice to the proceedings, but I can provide the summaries of the papers. Figure 1: Legend: Each observation represents average equity…
-
Library of economics & Liberty: Econlog
-
Favorite Economics Dialogues in Movies
3 Jul 2009 | 9:00 am(July 3, 2009 09:00 AM, by David Henderson) Here's one of mine, from Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. It's about one of the most important things economics deals with--incentives. Lisa (played by Grace Kelly) and Jeff (played by Jimmy Stewart), are listening to a man in another apartment play... -
Social Science and Public Policy
3 Jul 2009 | 8:44 am(July 3, 2009 08:44 AM, by Arnold Kling) How do economists and other social scientists influence public policy? Yesterday, I recommended Jeffrey Friedman's article on the financial crisis. Its theme is regulatory hubris, and Friedman disparages "economism," which might be described as a belief that wise economists can... -
Further Reply to Matt: Who is "We"?
2 Jul 2009 | 6:45 pm(July 2, 2009 06:45 PM, by David Henderson) Like some commenters, I found Bryan Caplan's post on health care today to be one of his best. And he's already set a high bar. But, believe it or not, given that Bryan is a more-radical libertarian than I am,... -
Jeffrey Friedman on the Financial Crisis
2 Jul 2009 | 11:12 am(July 2, 2009 11:12 AM, by Arnold Kling) Critical Review is publishing a special issue on the financial crisis. I have uploaded Jeffrey Friedman's introduction. I strongly recommend the entire issue. The paper by Acharya and Richardson is the one that most closely reflects my own views. Friedman's... -
Great Questions, Matt
2 Jul 2009 | 9:59 am(July 2, 2009 09:59 AM, by Bryan Caplan) Over at U.S. News and World Report, Matt Bandyk has a follow-up question for my last post on mandatory insurance and adverse selection:Here's my question to Dr. Caplan: But far from being populist anti-intellectualism, isn't the objection that "poor people...
-
NYT > Money & Policy
-
Revisions to Health Bill Are Unveiled by Democrats
2 Jul 2009 | 11:30 pmAction by the leaders of the Senate health committee cleared the way for a vote by the panel next week. -
Senator Grassley Asks Aetna About Limited Health Policy
2 Jul 2009 | 10:23 pmThe Iowa Republican is seeking details about insurance the company sold to a man in Texas that left him owing nearly $200,000 in medical bills. -
Sanofi Drug for Heart Rhythm Disorder Is Approved
2 Jul 2009 | 10:22 pmSanofi plans to begin marketing Multaq, generically known as dronedarone, in the United States this summer. -
President Pushes Health Plan as an Economic Boon
2 Jul 2009 | 11:22 amAt a town-hall-style meeting, President Obama pushed his proposal for a health care overhaul as a cost-saver rather than an expenditure. -
The Work-Up: Insured, but Bankrupted by Health Crises
1 Jul 2009 | 4:28 pmSome people counted as medically insured have coverage so meager that a medical crisis means financial calamity.
-
Economist's View
-
Does Lack of Insurance Distort the Market for Romance?
3 Jul 2009 | 1:43 pm[Suggested by email] -
Obama Economic Forecast
3 Jul 2009 | 1:32 pmSpencer at Angry Bear:The right is having a lot of fun commenting about the economic forecast by the Obama team being too optimistic. ... I guess they are right, Obama along with everyone else has massively underestimated the damage Team Bush did to our economy. -
Rationing Health Care
3 Jul 2009 | 11:51 amUwe Reinhardt: ‘Rationing’ Health Care: What Does It Mean?, by Uwe E. Reinhardt, Economix: As the dreaded R-word — rationing — once again worms its way into our debate on health care reform, it may be helpful to relearn what is taught about rationing in freshman economics. In their well-known textbook Microeconomics, the Harvard professor Michael L. Katz and the Princeton professor Harvey S. Rosen, for example, put it thusly: Prices ration scarce resources. If bread were free, a huge quantity of it would be demanded. Because the resources used to produce bread are scarce, the actual… -
Paul Krugman: That ’30s Show
3 Jul 2009 | 1:03 amThe economy needs more help: That ’30s Show, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: O.K., Thursday’s jobs report settles it. We’re going to need a bigger stimulus. But does the president know that?... Since the recession began, the U.S. economy has lost 6 ½ million jobs — and as that grim employment report confirmed, it’s continuing to lose jobs at a rapid pace. Once you take into account the 100,000-plus new jobs that we need each month just to keep up with a growing population, we’re about 8 ½ million jobs in the hole. And the ... job figures weren’t the only bad news in… -
links for 2009-07-03
3 Jul 2009 | 12:06 amThis Is Their Reform Strategy For Big Banks? - The Baseline Scenario Treasury's View of PPIP, an Update - The Stash Put transit where the people are - Ed Glaeser The Wranglers - Information Processing Second Life data offers window into how trends spread - EurekAlert A Smart Critique of the Public Plan (Sort Of) - Ezra Klein Bring the Unemployment Numbers Down Now - Economic Perspectives An Emerging Split: Treasury vs. the National Economic Council - Economix Explaining the trade collapse - voxeu.org ‘Easy Money’ Didn’t Sink the Economy - Economic Perspectives American jobs data are…
-
Library of economics & Liberty: Econtalk
-
Helprin on Copyright
29 Jun 2009 | 3:30 amNovelist Mark Helprin talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about copyright and the ideas in his book, Digital Barbarism. Helprin argues for an extension rather than a reduction in the length of time that authors have control over their work. He also argues that technology is often not attuned to human needs and physical constraints, claiming that tranquility is elusive in modern times. He sees the movement against copyright and intellectual property generally as part of an educational and social trend toward collective rather than individual work. Play Time: 1:01:52 How do I listen to a… -
Munger on Franchising, Vertical Integration, and the Auto Industry
22 Jun 2009 | 3:30 amMichael Munger, of Duke University, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about franchising, particularly car dealerships. Munger highlights how the dealers used state regulations to protect their profits and how bankruptcy appears to be unraveling that strategy. The main themes of the conversation are the incentives in the franchising relationship and the evolution of the auto industry in the United States over the last forty years. Play Time: 57:16 How do I listen to a podcast? Download Size: 26.3 MB Right-click or Option-click, and select "Save Link/Target As MP3. Readings and Links… -
Platt on Working at Wal-Mart
15 Jun 2009 | 3:30 amCharles Platt, author and journalist, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts what it was like to apply for a job at Wal-Mart, get one, and work there. He discusses the hiring process, the training process, and the degree of autonomy Wal-Mart employees have to change prices. The conversation concludes with a discussion of attitudes toward Wal-Mart. Play Time: 59:43 How do I listen to a podcast? Download Size: 27.4 MB Right-click or Option-click, and select "Save Link/Target As MP3. Readings and Links related to this podcast Podcast Readings HIDE READINGS About this week's guest: Charles Platt's… -
Rebonato on Risk Management and the Crisis
8 Jun 2009 | 3:30 amRiccardo Rebonato of the Royal Bank of Scotland and author of Plight of the Fortune Tellers talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the challenges of measuring risk and making decisions and creating regulation in the face of risk and uncertainty. Rebonato's book, written before the crisis, argues that risk managers often overestimate the reliability of the measures they use to assess risk. In this conversation, Rebonato applies these ideas to the crisis and to the challenges of designing effective regulation. Play Time: 1:02:22 How do I listen to a podcast? Download Size: 28.6 MB… -
Epstein on the Rule of Law
1 Jun 2009 | 3:30 amRichard Epstein of the University of Chicago and Stanford University's Hoover Institution talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the rule of law. Epstein lays out a minimalist definition and a more expansive definition when considering the protection that individuals might have when facing the power of the state or the sovereign. Applications include "takings" and the current government interventions in the auto industry and the financial sector. Play Time: 1:06:29 How do I listen to a podcast? Download Size: 30.5 MB Right-click or Option-click, and select "Save Link/Target As MP3.
-
Environmental Economics
-
Friday beer post: another unsolicited beer suggestion from someone who has tasted a beer or two
3 Jul 2009 | 1:11 pmFrom the inbox:Torpedo Extra IPA: tastyLink: http://www.sierranevada.com/beers/torpedo.html -
I can't help a little boast about this one
3 Jul 2009 | 1:03 pmFrom the inbox:Dear Professor John Whitehead,We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript, "Convergent Validity of Revealed and Stated Recreation Behavior with Quality Change: A Comparison of Multiple and Single Site Demands", has been accepted for publication in Environmental and Resource Economics.Sometimes referees make you work really hard. This is one of those. Celebration time!Note: Dan Phaneuf and Chris Dumas are co-authors (+ 3 more non-economists). Here is a link to an earlier version of the paper: http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/aplwpaper/07-17.htm. -
Another economist in the Waxman-Markey camp
3 Jul 2009 | 12:01 pmIn "Another comment on Waxman-Markey", Charles Kolstad (co-editor of the AERE journal, Review of Environmental Economics and Policy) concludes:Although the bill has its shortcomings, at its core it is an impressive piece of legislation. If the senate trims some of the glaring defects, then the U.S. will become the world leader in taking global warming and climate change seriously. After a quick review of cap-and-trade, Kolstad takes aim at three concerns: ... (1) that permit costs will drive up the cost of everything in our economy and hit the average citizen hard in the pocketbook;… -
WSJ and Real Climate on the fuss at NCEE
3 Jul 2009 | 9:11 amThis morning’s Wall Street Journal opinion section contains a lot of what one expects to see. There’s an opinion piece making a big fuss over the fake scandal at the EPA.Hat tip: Krugman. -
I'm an idiot
3 Jul 2009 | 4:25 amFind out just how BIG an idiot I really am:The U.S. House of Representatives voted on June 26, 2009 to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act, commonly known as the Waxman-Markey Bill. While, as of this posting, it has yet to pass the Senate, the bill promises an unprecedented and sweeping package of climate legislation, the full ramifications of which are yet to be determined. But will the bill actually accomplish all of its purported goals? And how? What effects, short and long-term, will the bill actually have on the U.S. economy and the current path of climate change? The Energy…
-
Footnoted
-
GM: Please don’t buy our stock!
2 Jul 2009 | 7:16 amAt a time when so many people are beating the drum about the need for companies to file transparent documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission, General Motors (GMGMQ) deserves credit. Granted, the subject of the press release that accompanied yesterday’s 8-K was very grim; but there’s no spin at all in their message: GM Statement re: GM stock price and volume GM management has noticed the continuing high trading volume in GM’s common stock at prices in excess of $1. GM management continues to remind investors of its strong belief that there will be no value for the… -
Live blogging SEC meeting on pay
1 Jul 2009 | 7:41 amWe’re listening in this morning to the SEC’s Open Meeting on enhancing proxy disclosures, a subject that we cover frequently here at footnoted. You can listen to the hearing yourself here or follow my live tweets (and others who are listening in) here. According to its just-released Fact Sheet, the Commission is “considering whether to propose a set of revisions to [its] rules that would improve the disclosure provided to shareholders of public companies regarding compensation and corporate governance matters when voting decisions are made.” One group that will be at… -
Philip Morris is here to help…
30 Jun 2009 | 7:45 amRemember that famous phrase, “We’re from the government and we’re here to help”? Well, at a time when many governments are struggling to make ends meet Philip Morris (PM) says that they’re here to help. In this 74-page slideshow last Friday (there’s lots of pictures, so don’t be too scared), the company’s CFO noted that because it was raising prices on cigarettes in dozens of countries it was actually helping various governments. Here’s how Philip Morris describes it in one of the slides: “Higher cigarette retail prices are boosting… -
New Foot Locker Executive Scores Big Comp Package
29 Jun 2009 | 7:03 amWho can blame Ken Hicks if he has a new spring in his step? Foot Locker just hired him to be its new President and CEO, and the exhibit to the 8-K that the company filed Friday afternoon reveals that he’s scored a lucrative pay package for his work. Hicks is no stranger to the world of footwear. He served as the president of Payless Shoe Source, Inc. from 1999 until 2002. After he left Payless, he went to J. C. Penney, where he most recently served as the company’s president and Chief Merchandising Officer.He was paid very well at Penney’s; according to this proxy filed March… -
Fast food goes new media…
26 Jun 2009 | 6:49 amUntil this week, it seemed fairly safe to suppose that an impenetrable divide existed between the world of SEC filings and the technophiles who have already downloaded MashDeck. And then we read the exhibit to this 8-K, which included one of the first references we’ve seen in SEC filings to the the popular social media site Mashable. (And because the web is a giant echo chamber, Mashable has its own account of the story). It was filed by CKE Restaurants, Inc. (CKR) - the company behind Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. restaurants – you know, the fast-food joints where you get those…
-
NYT: Freakonomics
-
The Danger of Safety
2 Jul 2009 | 11:44 amIn case you haven't heard, an accident on the Washington metro claimed nine lives last week. But then again, chances are you have heard, as the crash got wide coverage over the airwaves, on the net, and in the papers (by my count, at least five articles appeared in The Times). This is usually the case when trains or planes are involved in deadly disasters. -
Quotes Uncovered: Who Said You're Always Where You Are?
2 Jul 2009 | 10:23 amA while back, I invited readers to submit quotations for which they wanted me to try to trace the origins, using The Yale Book of Quotations and more recent research by me. Hundreds of people have responded via comments or e-mails. I am responding as best I can, a few per week. -
Not Darwin's Year?
2 Jul 2009 | 9:16 amthis year, Darwin's 200th anniversary, Americans favor intelligent design over Darwinian theory. According to the poll, 33 percent of respondents said they agreed with Darwinism, but 52 percent agreed that "the development of life was guided by intelligent design." On the other hand, the poll was commissioned by The Discovery Institute, which advocates intelligent design. -
Reading the Employment Report: Focus on Hours, Not Heads
2 Jul 2009 | 8:23 amThe latest employment numbers are out, and they are dreadful. Those commentators who saw "green shoots" out there had been focusing on the fact that in May, the economy "only" shed 322,000 jobs, which is good news when compared with the fact that the economy had been losing over 600,000 jobs per month in January, February, and March. Squint hard enough at the black line in my chart, and you can see why many were hopeful that job losses were slowing down. -
How the Market Influences What Language You Read In
2 Jul 2009 | 7:41 amMy Dutch friends tell me that they read foreign (non-Dutch) novels that are translated into English rather than into Dutch. Their English is very good, but their Dutch is clearly better. So, I ask, why read in English?
-
Twitter: Freakonomics
-
freakonomics: The Danger of Safety: Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times In case you haven't heard, an accident on the Wa.. http://tinyurl.com/mk9a89
2 Jul 2009 | 11:51 amfreakonomics: The Danger of Safety: Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times In case you haven't heard, an accident on the Wa.. http://tinyurl.com/mk9a89 -
freakonomics: Quotes Uncovered: Who Said You're Always Where You Are?: A while back, I invited readers to submit quotations fo.. http://tinyurl.com/mok98r
2 Jul 2009 | 10:22 amfreakonomics: Quotes Uncovered: Who Said You're Always Where You Are?: A while back, I invited readers to submit quotations fo.. http://tinyurl.com/mok98r -
freakonomics: Not Darwin's Year?: this year, Darwin's 200th anniversary, Americans favor intelligent design over Darwinian the.. http://tinyurl.com/lug59t
2 Jul 2009 | 9:51 amfreakonomics: Not Darwin's Year?: this year, Darwin's 200th anniversary, Americans favor intelligent design over Darwinian the.. http://tinyurl.com/lug59t -
freakonomics: Reading the Employment Report: Focus on Hours, Not Heads: The latest employment numbers are out, and they are dr.. http://tinyurl.com/newz9e
2 Jul 2009 | 8:52 amfreakonomics: Reading the Employment Report: Focus on Hours, Not Heads: The latest employment numbers are out, and they are dr.. http://tinyurl.com/newz9e -
freakonomics: How the Market Influences What Language You Read In: My Dutch friends tell me that they read foreign (non-Dutch).. http://tinyurl.com/nqu6n2
2 Jul 2009 | 7:53 amfreakonomics: How the Market Influences What Language You Read In: My Dutch friends tell me that they read foreign (non-Dutch).. http://tinyurl.com/nqu6n2
-
Umair Haque
-
Michael Jackson and the Zombieconomy
29 Jun 2009 | 8:05 am"...Sales of his recordings through Sony's music unit have generated more than $300 million in royalties for Mr. Jackson since the early 1980's." Want to know why we have a zombieconomy? Because the beancounters killed the incentives to create real value. Let's use MJ's tragic death as a mini case-study. $300 million over, for example, 25 years? That's $12 million a year. I'm deliberately leaving out ads, endorsements, concerts, etc., to focus on the the structural problems in one industry: music. If the world's biggest pop star only made $12 million a year from his recordings, why would… -
Today in The Zombieconomy
25 Jun 2009 | 6:29 amPsst — want to know why our capital markets don't work? Because "investors" are mostly agitpropagandists, seeking a more and more ephemeral informational edge — instead of analyzing companies better. Just like food companies no longer produce real food — but the experience of having eaten food. Just like the media industry dumped durable, high-quality content, like analysis and reporting — in favour of disposable, low-cost entertainment. Just like venture investors are investing in...minigames — instead of launching a wave of 21st century industrial revolutions… -
A Modest Proposal to Subsidize the Tall
25 Jun 2009 | 5:35 amProfs Mankiw and Weinzierl ask: should we tax the tall?. Here is a modest proposal in answer to their question. Should we tax the tall? No! We should subsidize them. That is what I have determined after a desperate all-night review of 400 years of economic history. Capital flows to wherever it is most productive, according to Friedman's interpretation of Hayek's interpretation of Mill's interpretation of Ricardo's interpretation of Adam Smith. Ergo, benefits must be flowing to the tall because they are the most productive: QED. So once even more capital does flow to the tall, they will… -
Tehran 2.0
21 Jun 2009 | 3:40 pmDear Ayatollah Khamenei, Welcome to the 21st century. Here's what you're up against. "If one voice can change a room, then it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it can change a state, it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation, it can change the world." Who said that? Your antithesis: Barack Obama. He launched the first political revolution of the 21st century. And you're facing the second. You're the Supreme Leader, so I guess you probably think you hold all the cards. The problem is that it's the last hand of the last game — ever. -
The Case for Constructive Capitalism
15 Jun 2009 | 10:11 am"Gas-guzzling S.U.V.'s, cigarette boats, no-income mortgages and private jets should be relegated to the junk heaps of history, or better yet, put in a museum dedicated to never forgetting the greed and avarice that led us so far astray." Who wrote this incendiary paragraph? Che Guevara's alter ego, perhaps — or maybe the ghost of Karl Marx? Nope — one of the authors was William Cohan, a former MD at JP Morgan and eminent financial observer, in the op-ed page of the NYT. It echoes my recent posts on "unnovation," where I used the Hummer as an example. So if a snot-nosed kid like…
-
HedgeFundBlogger.com by Richard Wilson
-
Hedge Fund Infrastructure Investments
2 Jul 2009 | 11:08 amHedge Fund Infrastructure InvestmentsWhile we don't usually publish videos put out by industry service providers, below is a very professional interview-based video created by Advent Software. Within this video they talk about hedge fund infrastructure, investing in improving operations, and the pay-off periods of doing so. Click here to view the embedded video below.View over 100 videos on hedge funds within our Hedge Fund Video Library.Related to Hedge Fund Infrastructure InvestmentsBarrons Top Hedge Fund List - ReviewAndrew Lo on Hedge Funds + Pension FundsHedge Fund Investments &… -
Mechanical Trading Systems by Richard Weissman
2 Jul 2009 | 11:05 amMechanical Trading SystemsRichard Weissman introduces the reader with a process-driven approach to trading. In addition to the development of mechanical trading systems, the significance of trader psychology is discussed throughout the book. Mr. Weissman calls it the framework of “reprogramming the trader.” He provides a clear understanding behind the conceptual development of mechanical trading systems as well as demonstrates possible mistakes by system developers and ways to avoid them. His main lesson for the reader is that flexibility enables traders to succeed in all kinds of trading… -
Institutional Family Office Investors | Video
1 Jul 2009 | 9:35 amFamily Office InvestorsBelow is a short video on the Family Offices Database, a capital raising resource ran by the Family Offices Group. Part of our team here at HedgeFundBlogger.com helps upgrade this product every 4-6 months. If you are viewing this via our daily email newsletter please click here to watch the embedded video below:Learn more at http://www.FamilyOfficesDatabase.comTags: Family Office Investors, Institutional investors, institutional hedge fund investors, institutional private equity investors, CTA Fund Investors, Top hedge fund investors, family office -
13 F Analysis Of DE Shaw & Co
1 Jul 2009 | 9:19 amDE SHAW & COBelow please find a 13F analysis report for DE Shaw & Co for Q1 2009. 13F analyses are reports that fund managers with over $100M are required to submit to the SEC, they are publicly available and these reports provide us with some insights on what some hedge fund managers have been investing in.Founded in 1988, the D. E. Shaw group is a global investment and technology development firm with approximately $35 billion in aggregate investment capital and offices in North America, Europe, and Asia.• (ABC) Amerisourcebergen Corp• (ABII) Abraxis Bioscience• (APC) Anadarco… -
Hedge Fund Startup Example | Why Start Now?
29 Jun 2009 | 11:27 amHedge Fund Startup ExampleA good article was put out by Dealbook this week on hedge fund startups, why they are launching funds right now and how they are doing. This particular article provides an example of a young fund in London ran by very experienced professionals in the industry. I think these types of articles are great as many articles put out on hedge funds today written about the whole industry and not on young hedge funds or about many individual funds, here is the excerpt from this article:In a small office in London’s upscale West End, three veterans of high finance are getting…
-
the economist: free exchange
-
America's terrible institutions
2 Jul 2009 | 1:49 pmMANY people have complained during the recession that too much authority has been concentrated in the executive and the Federal Reserve. They have a point, but the problem seems to be that the legislative branch of government has become entirely dysfunctional. What's more, it appears to be beyond reform. Ezra Klein is proposing some committee reforms that will never happen, but it's worth reading the logic behind the argument:The problem with the agricultural committees, however, can be summed up in a single question: Why would you, as a young member of Congress, choose to sit on… -
Link exchange
2 Jul 2009 | 1:06 pmTODAY'S recommended economics writing: • How did the SEC miss Bernie Madoff's fraud? Some didn't. Still, Mr Madoff wasn't the biggest crook of this stock market cycle, says Dasan. • Facing deficits, some American states are cutting summer school, while others are cutting Independence Day celebrations. • Time asks, is a stock bubble forming in China? • Via Abnormal Returns, some websites to help you with investing, though I'm not sure I'd take advice from anyone right now. • We got to him before Jon Steward did. -
Missing the point on carbon tariffs
2 Jul 2009 | 12:28 pmPAUL KRUGMAN doesn't seem to be paying attention to the arguments opponents of carbon tariffs are actually making. It's much easier, I guess, to make up an opposing view to debate against. He writes:So the economics are right; it’s WTO-legal; and it would neutralize a major political argument against controlling greenhouse gases. Why, oh, why, would Obama say “Ni”?Mr Krugman seems to be suggesting that Mr Obama is just an idiot for not seeing the obvious. But as I've argued before, non-idiots who are actually concerned about climate change recognise that an… -
Inferior goods?
2 Jul 2009 | 10:00 amTIME'S Cheapskate blog is collecting a list of goods that have enjoyed an increase in demand through the current recession. Time political writer Michael Scherer helpfully summarises (with links):Seeds, Condoms, Romance Novels, Donuts, Silly Movies, Smartphones, Yoga, Lotteries...The theme would appear to be cheap fun. And smartphones. -
Cutting off the flow
2 Jul 2009 | 8:06 amMY COLLEAGUE wrote about European attitudes to immigration a couple of days ago, and pointed to this news story about Spain paying immigrants to return to their countries of origin. It seems that's only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things rich countries are doing to limit immigration. A new OECD report says that everything from reducing limits on how many immigrants can enter under various programmes, to the aforementioned incentives to return, to just making it harder for employers to hire foreigners, is being tried.More details in this story. As the earlier post pointed out,…
-
Twitter: The Economist
-
TheEconomist: A new debate has just opened on Economist.com. Can science create truly sustainable development? Join and share your views http://ow.ly/grND
3 Jul 2009 | 8:16 amTheEconomist: A new debate has just opened on Economist.com. Can science create truly sustainable development? Join and share your views http://ow.ly/grND -
TheEconomist: Look out for The Economist's new ad 'Red Wires' if you're off to the cinema this weekend http://ow.ly/grI0
3 Jul 2009 | 8:02 amTheEconomist: Look out for The Economist's new ad 'Red Wires' if you're off to the cinema this weekend http://ow.ly/grI0 -
TheEconomist: Happy new year: The pain of balancing budgets is felt in California and many other statesTHE mantra in Washingto.. http://snipurl.com/lpdsy
3 Jul 2009 | 8:00 amTheEconomist: Happy new year: The pain of balancing budgets is felt in California and many other statesTHE mantra in Washingto.. http://snipurl.com/lpdsy -
TheEconomist: Constitution please: Fiji is far from returning to democracyOn July 1st Fiji's unelected prime minister, Voreqe .. http://snipurl.com/lpamf
3 Jul 2009 | 7:00 amTheEconomist: Constitution please: Fiji is far from returning to democracyOn July 1st Fiji's unelected prime minister, Voreqe .. http://snipurl.com/lpamf -
TheEconomist: Flights of fancy: Why airborne automobiles will never take offWHAT is it about “flying cars” that ma.. http://snipurl.com/lp3dj
3 Jul 2009 | 4:30 amTheEconomist: Flights of fancy: Why airborne automobiles will never take offWHAT is it about “flying cars” that ma.. http://snipurl.com/lp3dj
-
Global Economy Matters
-
The Global Manufacturing Contraction Eases Again In June
1 Jul 2009 | 2:16 pmby Edward Hugh: BarcelonaGlobal manufacturing took another step towards growth in June - but the process was, as ever, uneven. The JPMorgan Global Manufacturing PMI posted 46.9, its highest reading since last August. The current output component even expanded slightly following a year-long period of contraction. The PMI has now remained below the neutral 50.0 mark for thirteen successive months.The principal factors weighing down on the level of the PMI in June were declines in new orders, employment and inventories. However, rates of contraction in new work and employment eased to their… -
Are The IMF and The ECB Lining Up Against The EU Commission Over Latvia?
29 Jun 2009 | 9:27 amby Edward Hugh: BarcelonaThere was a very interesting and revealing press conference given by IMF First Deputy Managing Director John Lipsky and European Central Bank governing council member Christian Noyer in Paris on Thursday. Christian Noyer said that, in his opinion, Baltic countries like Latvia would not be helped by joining the single currency (the euro) prematurely."It's in the interest of candidate countries not to enter too early because it risks making the economic situation unbearable," Noyer said.Lipsky, for his part stressed the region could not depend on any particular foreign… -
Consumer Sentiment Rises As Exports Slump - But Where, Oh Where Is The Recovery?
24 Jun 2009 | 2:56 pmby Edward Hugh: BarcelonaJapan put in a pretty negative export performance in May. Even shipments to China show little sign of improvement, and the general impression is that hopes for a quick recovery in global demand are looking very premature.On the other hand a 42 per cent year-on-year fall in imports in May left Japan with a trade surplus of Y299.8bn for the month - something that will help push gross domestic product back toward growth this quarter, but a trade surplus where imports fall faster than exports is not the same as a surplus where exports grow faster than imports, and… -
Europe's Economies Move Sideways In June
23 Jun 2009 | 6:49 amby Edward Hugh: BarcelonaThe eurozone economies moved sideways in June, with the flash reading on the composite purchasing managers index (which covers both industry and services) for the 16 nation euro area rising to 44.4, fractionally above the 44 registered in May. So we are just where we were before, contracting more slowly than in Q1, but still contracting, and the fiscal bullet is now almost spent.Not without importance was that the reading came in significantly weaker than the consensus expectation for a sharp increase to 45.3. So the market *has* been getting ahead of itself.On the… -
Facebook Links
20 Jun 2009 | 2:48 amby Edward Hugh: BarcelonaQuietly clicking my way through Bloomberg last Sunday afternoon, I came across this:Facebook Members Register Names at 550 a SecondFacebook Inc., the world’s largest social-networking site, said members registered new user names at a rate of more than 550 a second after the company offered people the chance to claim a personalized Web address.Facebook started accepted registrations at midnight New York time on a first-come, first-served basis. Within the first seven minutes, 345,000 people had claimed user names, said Larry Yu, a spokesman for Palo Alto,…
-
Greg Mankiw's Blog
-
High-speed Trains to Nowhere
3 Jul 2009 | 5:12 amHarvard economist Ed Glaeser on transportation policy. -
CBO and I agree
3 Jul 2009 | 12:43 amIn my recent Times article on the possibility of a public option, I wroteAn important question about any public provider of health insurance is whether it would have access to taxpayer funds. If not, the public plan would have to stand on its own financially, as private plans do, covering all expenses with premiums from those who signed up for it.But if such a plan were desirable and feasible, nothing would stop someone from setting it up right now. In essence, a public plan without taxpayer support would be yet another nonprofit company offering health insurance. The fundamental viability of… -
Unemployment Update
2 Jul 2009 | 6:25 pmSource of graph. Click here for my discussion of it. -
Old Speeches, New Policies
2 Jul 2009 | 2:36 pmFor academics, it always a delight when some old, obscure thing we've written suddenly gets noticed. So I was pleased when econoblogger Mark Thoma decided to draw attention yesterday to a speech I gave six years ago (pdf version) to the National Association of Business Economists. I had not looked at that speech in years, but looking back at it today, I think that it holds up pretty well. So, please, feel free to follow the link and read the whole thing.The part of the speech that Mark highlights on his blog is the defense of running budget deficits during a recession. I am a bit puzzled… -
Protectionism: A New Twist
2 Jul 2009 | 6:58 am
-
Jeff Matthews Is Not Making This Up
-
This Just In: Hunter S. Thompson Now Working for Credit Suisse!
2 Jul 2009 | 5:50 amWe were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold…. —From “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” by Hunter S. Thompson.So begins the best opening line to a book since…well, if there’s a better one, I can’t remember it.And while the link between the musings of a drug-addled, gun-crazy journalist and that of Wall Street’s Finest might seem weak at best, we here at NotMakingThisUp nominate the following headline (from the indispensible Briefing.com) as Exhibit A in the Case that Hunter S. Thompson did not shoot himself dead, but is in fact… -
Nobel Freakonomics
29 Jun 2009 | 5:05 amWe don’t read Paul Krugman much these days—not since the New York Times outsourced its newsroom to the White House press office—but we did catch his column, “Not Enough Audacity,” in which the Nobel Prize-winning economist frets that Obama’s health care efforts aren’t radical enough:On one side there’s Barack the Policy Wonk, whose command of the issues — and ability to explain those issues in plain English — is a joy to behold.But on the other side there’s Barack the Post-Partisan, who searches for common ground where none exists, and whose negotiations with himself… -
Thanks, Michael
26 Jun 2009 | 6:06 am“Now he’s gone and joined that stupid club.”—Wendy O’Connor (Kurt Cobain’s mother) after her son killed himself, joining Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, rock stars dead at 27. Okay, so we’ve been in a thankful mood recently (see “Thanks, Google” from June 15), and we’re going give thanks once more on these virtual pages.Not, however, to the Michael Jackson who married Elvis’ daughter, dangled his baby out a window, and re-jiggered his face into some sort of Dangers-of-Plastic-Surgery warning poster.The Michael Jackson who deserves thanking here is the genius… -
‘Woodstock for Capitalists’ Concluded: “The Edge of Death” and Other Matters
19 Jun 2009 | 6:49 amLost Bragging Rights; Credit Default Squeeze Explained; Student Loan Business Unexplained; A Nephew Married and a Suspicion Confirmed; Charlie Munger, Rational to the Last; a Final Breakthrough ForetoldLost Bragging Rights and a Mystery ExplainedWarren Buffett loved his Triple-A credit rating.He mentioned it frequently, and spoke of its importance as far back as his 2003 shareholder letter:Among the giants, General Re, rated AAA across-the-board, is now in a class by itself in respect to its financial strength.No attribute is more important…. When an insurer lays out money today in exchange… -
Thanks, Google
15 Jun 2009 | 5:58 amGoogle has been much in the news lately—and not in a good way.Google’s ambitions—particularly in the book field, where it recently settled a lawsuit by publishers over its plans to scan every out-of-print book ever written so as to be searchable—have taken on Microsoftian overtones in the minds of authors, publishers and, now, Government lawyers..This is how the Wall Street Journal reported developments last week:.U.S. Steps Up Probe of Google Book DealBy Elizabeth Williamson, Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, and Jessica E. VascellaroThe Justice Department has sent formal demands to Google…
-
Marginal Revolution
-
The best paragraph I read today
3 Jul 2009 | 11:10 amDo I belong in an insane asylum? Or should I be on the FOMC (with Hall, Thompson and Svensson?) Damned if I know. This blog is either grossly overrated or grossly underrated, but it ain’t average.That's Scott Sumner. -
Voice (and loyalty)
3 Jul 2009 | 5:02 amAfter several of you complained, the Kindle price, for Create Your Own Economy, has been lowered to $14.27, from $20 something. Maybe someone at Amazon reads the comments at MR (really, I had nothing to do with it).What other prices would you like changed? Health insurance -- how much should that cost? A barrel of oil? Just let them know. -
A simple economic model of today's NBA
3 Jul 2009 | 4:33 amGiven economic bad times, many teams have overspent. But they have lots of long-term contracts, plus there is a salary cap and luxury tax for going above that cap. Real wages ought to fall but most of them cannot fall right away. If a player becomes a free agent, few teams will bid and those players will absorb a disproportionate share of the required wage cuts (the pricing of complementary inputs had some indeterminacy anyway, plus there is an AC constraint). The lower returns available mean that a given free agent is more likely to be a self-deluding trouble… -
Adverse Selection Once Again
3 Jul 2009 | 4:20 amAdverse selection is an easy story to tell but a hard story to verify. In fact, empirical studies indicate that adverse selection is not an important (equilibrium) effect in the market for used cars, or used trucks, or of auto, life insurance or health insurance. See my earlier post, Adverse Selection is NOT the Problem, for reasons why markets handle asymmetric information better than most economists think. In two excellent posts (here and here), Bryan Caplan further points out that the adverse selection model does not explain… -
Maniacs, all of us
3 Jul 2009 | 1:52 amIs blogging declining? Matt writes:Laura at Apartment 11D offers an excellent précis of the ways in which the blogosphere of today lacks much of the charm of the blogosphere of four or five years ago. I would say that there are compensating benefits to the new, more professionalized, more institutionalized blogosphere. But it really is different and the change has been for the worse in many ways.Laura links to many comments. I'm more optimistic. Very few (if any) of my favorite bloggers have quit and of course there are some new ones. It's surprising how…
-
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
-
More Idiocy From the SEC: Reinstatement of Short-Selling Restrictions
3 Jul 2009 | 8:08 amInquiring minds are reading S.E.C. May Reinstate Rules for Short-Selling Stocks.They have been reviled as the bad hats of Wall Street, nefarious traders who cashed in on the market collapse and, some insist, helped precipitate it.Now short-sellers, the market skeptics who correctly called last year’s downturn, are coming under even more unwanted scrutiny, this time from federal regulators. The Securities and Exchange Commission appears poised to reverse itself and reinstate rules that would make shorting stocks — that is, betting their prices will decline — somewhat more difficult.Many… -
Sweden Cuts Deposit Rate to NEGATIVE .25%
2 Jul 2009 | 2:42 pmThere has been a lot of ludicrous recommendations recently to combat deflation by making deposit rates negative. I did not think any central bank would be dumb enough to try it. I thought wrong.Today, Riksbank, Sweeden's central bank cut the deposit rate to -0.25% effectively charging savers interest on deposited money.DATE 2/07/2009The weak development of the economy requires a somewhat more expansionary monetary policy. The Executive Board of the Riksbank has therefore decided to cut the repo rate by 0.25 of a percentage point to 0.25 per cent.Deep economic downturnEconomic activity abroad… -
Listen to Citigroup Analysts at Your Own Peril
2 Jul 2009 | 12:19 pmCitigroup analysts appear to be a hopeless lot. Please consider this July 1, analyst recommendation: Citi tells clients to buy Bank of America.The analysts added Bank of America (BAC) to their "Ten+ Aggressive Growth List," telling clients that the Charlotte, N.C.-based company is a good long-term investment and that it should return to normalized annual earnings of $3 a share in a few years."We believe the firm stands to benefit long term from market-share gains across a variety of businesses, including traditional banking, mortgage origination, retail brokerage, and investment banking,"… -
Jobs Contract 18th Straight Month; Unemployment Rate Hits 9.5%
2 Jul 2009 | 10:03 amThis morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the June Employment Report.Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in June (-467,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Job losses were widespread across the major industry sectors, with large declines occurring in manufacturing, professional and business services, and construction..Establishment Dataclick on chart for sharper imageHighlights467,000 jobs were lost in total vs. 345,000 jobs last month.79,000 construction… -
Aircraft repair jobs sold to foreign workers, resumes not important
2 Jul 2009 | 12:38 amHere's something to think about when the unemployment numbers come out Thursday Morning: Aircraft repair jobs sold to foreign workers, resumes not important.A News 8 investigation found that hundreds of aircraft mechanics have been brought into the United States to work at aircraft repair facilities.Insiders say the companies that are importing the mechanics are so eager to save money, they’re overstating their qualifications. The result may be a threat to safety, abetted by lax enforcement of immigration law.At daybreak any morning at San Antonio Aerospace, hundreds of workers amble…
-
Oddhead Blog
-
Meet the splORGers: The latest breed of web spam parasites
24 Jun 2009 | 7:16 amVia Muthu. This is mind boggling to me. Sparasites on the web now somehow find it worth their while to invade ultra-specialized academic conferences. Call them splORGers. (In close analogy to sploggers). The website focs2008.org appears to be the official home of the 49th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science. (In fact, it’s the top result for the search “focs 2008″ in Bing, Google, and Yahoo!.) Historically a few hundred people attend to hear talks like “A Hypercontractive Inequality for Matrix-Valued Functions with Applications to Quantum Computing… -
Recovering from swine’s infection (my blog, that is)
22 Jun 2009 | 2:43 pmFor the second time, a hacker (in the swine sense of the word) broke in and defaced Oddhead Blog. Once again, I’m left impressed by the ingenuity of web malefactors and entirely mystified as to their motivation. Last week several readers notified me that my rss feed on Google Reader was filled with spam (”Order Emsam No RxOrder Emsam Overnight DeliveryOrder… BuyBuy…”). The strange part was, the feed looked fine when accessed directly on my website or via Bloglines. Only when Google requested the feed did it become corrupted, thus mucking up my content inside… -
Thank you Bangalore
17 Jun 2009 | 6:25 amSunday I returned from a trip to Bangalore, India, where I gave a talk on “The Automated Economy” about how computers can and should take over the mechanical aspects of economic activity, optimizing and learning from data in the way people cannot, with detailed case studies in online advertising and prediction markets. You can read the abstract, watch archive video of the talk, view my talk slides, browse the official pictures of the event, or see my personal pictures of the trip. Some say everything’s bigger in Texas (most vociferously Texans). They haven’t been to… -
Applause please
20 May 2009 | 5:04 amI recently spent two days at an economics workshop. In some ways it felt like visiting a foreign country. For one, the audience doesn’t clap. Especially when the speaker ends with “thank you”, the silence is deafening. I hadn’t realized how instinctual the reaction to applaud had become. Of course, it’s arbitrary whether a community claps or not when one of its members concludes a speech. If a community always claps for every speaker, the signal is meaningless as a gauge of satisfaction, like restaurant patrons tipping 18% regardless of service. In fact, almost… -
Betcha's Saint Nick fights cops, courts, Congress… and wins (for now)
4 May 2009 | 9:17 amSurely no legislature would craft an entire bill just to outlaw one person’s as-yet unprofitable small business? So when Nick Jenkins, founder of Betcha.com, calls a proposed Washington State law the “Kill Betcha.com Act”, certainly he must be exaggerating, paranoid or both, right? Actually not. I read the bill, and indeed its sole purpose seems to be to redefine gambling so as to make Jenkins’s company illegal. First some background. About two years ago, Jenkins, a crazybrilliant lawyer turned entrepreneur, started Betcha.com in Washington State, where gambling is…
-
A Dash of Insight
-
Employment Situation Report Preview
1 Jul 2009 | 6:40 pmEach month we ask the question, "What change in payroll employment would be consistent with other economic data from the same time period (the middle of the prior month)?This is not a forecast, per se, since we do not posit any causal relationship among these variables. They are all concomitant indicators of economic activity. We use the four-week moving average of initial unemployment claims, the University of Michigan sentiment survey, and the ISM manufacturing report. We carefully choose data from the correct time period. Even though the ISM report was released today, the survey is… -
Interpreting Housing Indicators
30 Jun 2009 | 3:43 pmFinding the right economic indicators is a challenge for investors. Often the same data are presented in several different ways. How does one make the right choice?Today's data on home prices from S&P Case-Shiller provides a useful example. As everyone knows, prices are down significantly from peak values and the annual data have a strong seasonal component. There are three quite different approaches.Month-over month changes. The 20-city home price index for April fell by 0.6% from March. This decline was reported by some media sources, but ignores the seasonality in the… -
ETF Update: Inverse ETF's and the Investor Toolbox
28 Jun 2009 | 7:36 pmWhat role should ETF''s play in the investor toolbox? Tadas Viskanta did a pretty thorough job of answering this question in a survey article last week. Anyone interested in ETF investing should read the entire piece carefully. It is very valuable. (We are delighted to see this new dimension in articles from Abnormal Returns, one of our favorite sites). The main arguments are that some ETF's are poorly designed. Others (especially the leveraged long and leveraged short choices) are geared to short-term trading and do not deliver when evaluated over a long time. The compounding of… -
A Crib Sheet for Government Data
25 Jun 2009 | 7:27 pmMost sources -- even big-time media types -- provide no guidance about sources of information from the federal government. There is a a useful advantage in knowing more.We realize that there are many who reject any government information. Here at "A Dash" we believe that this is an extreme viewpoint, and provides an opportunity for a trading advantage.In particular, we distinguish between reporting data and offering projections. Those rejecting the data reports are just fighting the mainstream interpretations accepted by nearly all economists and by the mutual fund managers. … -
Summer of '09 -- A Crucial Time for the Investor
23 Jun 2009 | 8:06 pmInvestors face some important decisions. For those approaching retirement it is a crucial time.There is plenty of advice. The television commercials, blogs, and email messages include a variety of appeals: Those telling you to buy an annuity to lock in your income, marketing to the fear of market losses, and perhaps playing down the death by a thousand cuts from inflation. Those telling you that you can do better than your financial advisor. Go on your own! You have a "feel" for the market. Those advising gold. Everything is about to go wrong, so you need to have hard assets. Those…
-
PSD Blog - The World Bank Group
-
Dollars and sense
1 Jul 2009 | 11:20 amEditor's Note: Anushka Thewarapperuma is a consultant with Advisory Services - Access to Finance at the IFC. Think you’ve got better money management skills than the world’s poorest? You might be surprised to find out that you’d be up against stiff competition. Jonathan Morduch and Daryl Collins report on their journey to various corners of the world (Bangladesh, India and South Africa to be exact) to observe how people living on less than $2 a day managed their financial lives in the recently published book Portfolios of the Poor. Their findings were summed up nicely in a recent… -
The mysterious acronym PFI
1 Jul 2009 | 8:49 amI am often confused when using acronyms. In the vast terminology of public private partnerships (PPP), it’s not hard to do. For example in a lot of countries the acronym PFI, which stands for Private Finance Initiative, is used as a synonym for PPP (Public Private Partnership). While the term PFI originated in the UK, in that country it is not synonymous with PPP. PFI has a more specific meaning, relating to a special government investment policy that clearly indicates what is and what is not PFI. While Wikipedia defines PFI as a “method to provide financial support to… -
Labor laws and Mexican spam
1 Jul 2009 | 8:06 amHow hard is it to fire someone in Mexico? It is apparently sufficiently hard that they offer courses on how to do it. I spent seven years in Mexico, and I still receive some Mexican spam. Here is my translation of an email I received which was advertising a one day course on how to fire employees: Firing a person is a delicate process filled with legal “mines.” It doesn’t matter how prepared you feel or how correct your decision is. Not doing it the right way puts you at risk for a lawsuit. No manager should begin this process without attending this seminar!! I don’t doubt that it is… -
Involving the public in public private partnerships
30 Jun 2009 | 12:19 pmCall them taxpayers, citizens, or just simply the public—they are the reason why public private partnerships (PPPs) are created. They are the users and the ultimate financiers, whether by paying taxes or tolls, and they want to have a bigger role in decisions about what infrastructure shall be built and how. It’s no surprise that public opinion is the ultimate judge of the success of PPP projects. And this ultimate judge is not always just; it does not always have the right information at the right time. It’s up to fallible public sector officials to ensure that proper information and… -
Big guy, little guy: Who suffers more from crime?
30 Jun 2009 | 12:08 pmAt first you might guess that it’s the big firms that make an easy target. But we need to do more than guess—the policy implications are quite different if the answer is “big” or “small.” If large firms are more efficient and do more R&D and export to other countries, then crime can be more harmful to the economy when directed against such firms. However, compared with large firms, wages and profits may be lower in the smaller firms. Crime directed against small firms can therefore be regressive (causing more harm to the relatively worse-off). It turns out…
-
Seeking Alpha
-
Employment News a 'Downer' for Equity Markets
3 Jul 2009 | 7:15 amBill Cara submits: [Excerpted from Bill Cara's Daily Report]Thursday’s Employment Report was a downer for US equities. Too many people had been hooked into the belief that the unemployment situation in the US, and Europe as well, was on the mend. The data shows otherwise.With final hour selling going into the long holiday weekend, Thursday’s session was particularly nasty. The S&P 500 (896.42 -26.91 -2.91%), the DJIA (8,280.74 -223.32 -2.63%), and the NASDAQ (1,796.52 -49.20 -2.67%) were all down substantially.Complete Story » -
In India, Google Searches for Users with Print Ads
3 Jul 2009 | 7:07 amTechCrunch submits: By Robin WautersDifferent markets have different needs for marketing products or services. We all know that much. But that doesn’t take away the weirdness of a company like Google (GOOG) advertising its core product (online search) by using ink that was printed on paper.Complete Story » -
Oh, So Now There Are No Green Shoots?
3 Jul 2009 | 5:43 amRoger Nusbaum submits: By now you know the non-farm payrolls report came out and the job loss for June was worse than expected. Fortunately the weekly jobless claims number stunk too (small humor attempt). And of course the stock market puked down yesterday.The tenor of the comments on CNBC seemed to be that "oh well, forget about it now," this after the occasional berating of people who were not so bullish before the June data printed. This sort of manic tone that investors are exposed to from various parts of the media has the potential to be dangerous.Complete Story » -
Marvel: Simply Marvelous, Pretty Expensive
3 Jul 2009 | 4:56 amVFC submits: Shares of Marvel Entertainment (MVL) leaped to over $37 as news of a JP Morgan upgrade sent the stock in motion. Morgan is predicting stronger than expected sales for Marvel next year.Complete Story » -
Sears: Retail Social Networking Pioneers
3 Jul 2009 | 4:51 amTodd Sullivan submits: Sears (SHLD) is doing some very interesting things online that while in their infancy, have the potential to turn them into a "social shopping hub".From Bnet:Complete Story »
-
Slate: Moneybox
-
What if Paul Krugman was a Japanese woman?
1 Jul 2009 | 12:28 pm"Please do not believe all the talk about the green shoots of the Japanese economy, which I suspect you might have heard. We are in pretty bad shape."[more ...] -
Why does Japan, the world's most efficient economy, have so many elevator operators and gas station attendants?
29 Jun 2009 | 10:29 amMore than any other country in the world, Japan is a case study in the triumphs of human engineering. Every Japanese manufacturer prides itself on energy efficiency and zero-landfill waste policies. The train and subway stations are models of precision and the application of information technology. Late last week, I visited Toyota's astonishing Tsutsumi auto plant, near the car company's headquarters in Toyoda City. With a capacity of 400,000 vehicles per year—this is where the Prius is made—it's clean, bright, full of erector-set conveyer belts, and thinly staffed. The welding shop is… -
Why so many green jobs are sprouting in Colorado.
27 Jun 2009 | 5:07 amIt only seems as though every company in America is downsizing. "We're hiring three or four people every week," says Prem Nath, senior vice president at Ascent Solar, in Thornton, Colo. Spun out of a technology incubator in 2005, the company is ramping up production of thin-film energy-producing cells printed on malleable plastic, which it sells in credit-card-size patches (to power a BlackBerry) and in 15-foot strips (for roofing material). As he unfurls a coil of the ultra-lightweight material, Nath notes that National Renewable Energy Laboratory, about 20 minutes away, validated that the… -
Japan saves energy by keeping office buildings at 82 degrees. Is this foresighted or perverse?
26 Jun 2009 | 8:25 amI should have suspected something was amiss when we—the group of journalists I'm traveling with in Japan for 10 days—showed up at the offices of the media company Nikkei, and our Japanese counterparts, columnists, and editors apologized for not wearing ties. We had received instructions that meetings were business formal, jacket and tie. But after a few minutes, we understood why our Japanese colleagues had gone business casual. The air conditioner in their brand-new Tokyo office tower seemed to be on the fritz. It was as hot and muggy as Miami.[more ...] -
The United States is experiencing what Japan did in the 1990s, but seven times faster.
24 Jun 2009 | 10:03 amCombine Japanese cultural tendencies toward formality, politesse, and indirection with the usual central banker's love of opacity and econo-jargon, and you'd expect that a meeting with the deputy governor of the Bank of Japan would be a one-way trip into a cloud of vagueness. But in a meeting Monday, Kiyohiko Nishimura, Yale-trained economist, former Tokyo University professor, and deputy governor of the Bank of Japan, gave one of the most lucid and useful explications of the credit crisis and its aftermath that I've heard—and I've heard a lot of them. And even more surprisingly, it was…
-
Streetsblog New York City
-
Independence Day Special: The Freedom to Sit
2 Jul 2009 | 12:27 pmThis was the scene at Herald Square yesterday afternoon. It's full of people doing what the Times' Susan Dominus finds so un-New York: sitting down. Some of these loafers are actually putting their feet up, right in the heart of our fast-paced, cutthroat city. It's like they've never even seen The Sweet Smell of Success. Streetfilms' Clarence Eckerson sent this photo and some others he snapped while shooting footage of the new Broadway. Before we get to those, a few Independence Day weekend notes. First, a reminder to tell John Liu that you support the Bicycle Access Bill. This is a big one. -
Streetfilms: D.C. DOT Director Talks “Transportation Freedom”
2 Jul 2009 | 10:55 amMeet Gabe Klein, who was appointed to direct Washington D.C.'s Department of Transportation (DDOT) in December 2008. With a background including four years working for Zipcar, Klein was brought in to look at the city's mobility problems from a fresh perspective. As he says: Cars are a part of our daily life here in D.C., but what we want to do is try to equalize the playing field. Encourage people to walk, to bike, to bike share; or instead of owning a car -- car share. D.C. already has one of the lowest household car-ownership rates of any major U.S. city, so actively promoting these modes… -
Action Alert: Tell John Liu to Support Better Bike Commuting in NYC
2 Jul 2009 | 10:10 amAn important heads up for our New York readers: Before you start grilling this weekend, make sure you sign on to TA's campaign urging John Liu to support the Bicycle Access Bill. Pretty much everyone from Mayor Bloomberg on down expected the bill to clear Liu's transportation committee this week and gain passage in the City Council. Didn't happen. If Liu lets the bill come up for a vote, we're looking at a watershed moment for bike commuting in New York. If he doesn't, it will be a major blow to PlaNYC's vision of a bike-friendly city, and the collective record of transportation committee… -
The Weekly Carnage
2 Jul 2009 | 9:43 amThe Weekly Carnage is a Friday round-up (a day early this week due to the holiday) of motor vehicle mayhem across the metro region. For more on the origins and purpose of this column, please read About the Weekly Carnage. Photo: Newsday Fatal Crashes (6 Killed This Week,43 Killed This Year*, 6 Drivers Charged**) Brooklyn: 72-Year-Old Cyclist Killed on Fifth Avenue; No Charges Filed (News) Related: Fatality Sparks Call for Further Street Improvements (Bklyn Paper) RFK-Triborough Bridge: Woman Killed by Lane-Cutting Driver (News) East Northport, LI: Dump Truck Tips Onto Car, Killing… -
Another Step in Reducing Auto Dependence
2 Jul 2009 | 7:30 amIf you're a person who is accustomed to getting around the place you live without a car, you've probably spent at least some time trying to sell your auto-dependent friends on the concept. Maybe you've even gone so far as to map out a route for them so that they wouldn't get frustrated. And sometimes you've succeeded in getting another person onto a bike, bus, train or trolley to make a trip across town. It's a good feeling, right? In Chicago's Southland, Streetsblog Network member Active Transportation Alliance has created a program called Footprints that makes this kind of friendly advice…
-
The Becker-Posner Blog
-
President Obama's Financial Reform Package-Becker
28 Jun 2009 | 7:44 pmSince the document laying out the President's financial reform package is 88 pages, I will concentrate my evaluation on a few basic issues. 1) Do the reforms rely mainly on regulatory discretion or on new rules? 2) Is there adequate attention to the issues raised by financial institutions being "too big to fail"? 3) Is it proposed to micromanage the operations of financial institutions and individuals? 4) Most important, are these reforms likely to greatly reduce the likelihood of another financial meltdown? I take them up in turn, but my overall grade for the plan is no higher than a B-, and… -
Financial Regulatory Reform--Posner's Comment
28 Jun 2009 | 2:27 pmI have blogged at considerable length about the July 17 report, see http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/richard_posner/, and also written a short op-ed on the subject, published in the New York Times on July 25 ("Our Crisis of Regulation," p. 21). I have emphasized both what seem to me fundamental failings in the report and weaknesses in particular proposals. The fundamental failings include prematurity, one-sidedness, and overambitiousness, and let me dwell for just a moment on the first of these, or rather one aspect of the first, and that is the Administration's determination to revamp… -
The Future of Newspapers--Posner
23 Jun 2009 | 5:37 pmWarren Buffett, who is a wit as well as a multibillionaire, said with reference to the fact that Bernard Madoff's long-running Ponzi scheme came to light during the financial collapse of last fall that until the tide goes out, you don't know who's swimming naked. A year ago Becker and I blogged about the decline of the newspaper industry. A year later the decline has accelerated. The economic crisis has hurt the newspaper industry as it has so many industries. The question is whether it will recover (or at least rejoin its slower downward path of last year) when the economy as a whole… -
The Social Cost of the Decline of Newspapers?Becker
23 Jun 2009 | 5:19 pmAccording to data compiled by my colleagues Matt Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro, the number of daily newspapers in the United States has been declining for more than 90 years, from a peak of about 2200 to its present level of about 1400. The decline started with the advent of radio, accelerated with the growth of television, and continued of course as the Internet became more popular. The likelihood is that many more newspapers will disappear during the coming decade, and that dailies no longer will be a major source of information and news. This has already happened to evening newspapers: their… -
Notice
21 Jun 2009 | 8:09 amWe will post on Tuesday of this week, rather than today.
-
The Big Picture
-
Why Didn’t Canadian Banks Go Wild?
3 Jul 2009 | 11:15 amFascinating story in USA Today on the banking system our neighbors to the North enjoy: Our northern neighbor sometimes seems so similar to the United States that it’s hard to tell where the USA ends and Canada begins. Here’s one way: Canada is the place with healthy banks, taxpayers unscathed by megabillion-dollar bailouts and no need to overhaul financial regulation because it was done right the first time. As U.S. officials scramble to prevent a crisis sequel, the ability of Canadian banks to navigate the current financial storm is earning global plaudits. The World Economic… -
Goldman Primed to Benefit from AIG’s Woes — Again
3 Jul 2009 | 11:15 am~~~ Source: Goldman Primed to Benefit from AIG’s Woes — Again, William Cohan Says Yahoo Tech Ticker, Jul 02, 2009 10:28am EDT Aaron Task http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/273168/Goldman-Primed-to-Benefit-from-AIG%27s-Woes—-Again-William-Cohan-Says -
Unemployment Rate % Change versus Prior Recessions
3 Jul 2009 | 9:30 amAfter yesterday saw unemployment tick up t0 9.5% (and U6 hit 16.5%!) I thought it might be a good time to do a little compare and contrast: Let’s compare job losses during this recession against prior recessions: This is a different way to look at the ob loss situation: This chart reveals the change in Unemployment across the past 7 recessions : > (thanks to RM for the eye candy!) > Chart does of the Day takes a look at this recession, the last recession and the average recession from 1954-2006: > via Chart of the Day The current job market has suffered losses that are nearly… -
Ultrazoom Cameras
3 Jul 2009 | 9:15 amOne of the only things I dislike about my Casio Exilim EX-Z75 7.2MP is the puny 3X optical zoom. So it was no surprise when this NYT article caught my attention: “There are currently two types of ultrazoom cameras: the full size and the compact. The full-size models resemble those digital single-lens-reflex cameras carried by professionals; compact ultrazooms look more like pumped-up standard point-and-shoot cameras. I pitted five models against each other in an ultrazoom showdown. The average ultrazoom I tested weighed about 15 ounces with a battery — the lightest weighed in at 8… -
Michael Lewis: The Man Who Crashed the World
3 Jul 2009 | 8:53 am
-
The Borjas Blog
-
Rearrangement of Migration Flows
6 Jun 2009 | 6:32 amThe WSJ has a very interesting articleThe Great U-Turn: The developed world, which for decades has offered a difficult but promising path to upward mobility, appears to be losing its allure. Unemployment is rising, and backlashes against foreign workers are mounting.The result is potentially the biggest turnaround in migration flows since the Great Depression...I have no doubt that worsening economic conditions in much of the developed world has contributed mightily to this trend. But there are a couple of extra factors to consider in the U.S. context.Much of the legal migration to the… -
Trends in Illegal Immigration
15 Apr 2009 | 11:20 amThe Pew Hispanic Center has an interesting report on the illegal immigrant population in the United States. The Los Angeles Times emphasizes one particularly interesting tidbit:After years of rapid growth, illegal immigration is slowing down in California, with the state's share of the nation's estimated 11.9 million undocumented migrants dropping to 22% from 42% in 1990, the study showed.That's quite a drop in California's magnetic attraction for illegal immigrants. The Pew study uses data for March 2008--so whatever is going on has nothing to do with the current… -
Smearing CIS
15 Apr 2009 | 10:45 amI've been following the work of the Center for Immigration Studies since the mid-1990s. They regularly publish empirical research on immigration, and I happen to be friends with both the head of the center, Mark Krikorian, and its research director, Steve Camarota. So it is with bizarre fascination that I watch from afar as the Southern Poverty Law Center attempts to tarnish what CIS does.In fact, CIS has made it possible for me to disseminate my technical research to a much wider audience. At least two or three times, I have taken some of my technical work, rewritten it in English,… -
...And Some New Research
23 Mar 2009 | 8:21 amI've been thinking for some time about the theoretical underpinnings of how immigration affects labor market conditions in sending and receiving countries. It seems to me there is a lot of confusion--some of it needless, some of it deliberate--and all kinds of conceptual claims tend to be thrown around.So I sat down a few months ago and began to construct a model that summarized--in a relatively "simple" framework--what it is that economics has to say about the labor market impact of immigration. The paper--available here--is really written for math geeks who like old-fashioned Chicago-style… -
Some Old Research...
23 Mar 2009 | 8:18 amI've been meaning to post that the paper that Jeff Grogger, Gordon Hanson and I wrote on the impact of immigration on the African-American community is now in final form. Here is the abstract:The employment rate of black men, and particularly of low-skill black men, fell precipitously from 1960 to 2000. At the same time, their incarceration rate rose. This paper examines the relation between immigration and these trends in employment and incarceration. Using data from the 1960-2000 U.S. Censuses, we find that a 10-percent immigration-induced increase in the supply of workers in a particular…
-
The Epicurean Dealmaker
-
Ask Mr. Dealmaker
23 Jun 2009 | 4:00 pmEDITOR'S NOTE: In our neverending quest to inform, entertain, and titillate our Devoted Readership, the editors of this publication have decided to inaugurate an exciting new series on this site, entitled "Ask Mr. Dealmaker." Designed to encompass the educational brilliance of Ask Mr. Wizard, the career savvy of Lucy Kellaway, and the psychological sensitivity of Dear Abby, this new feature will appear at irregular intervals according to the unpredictable whims of our senior writer and the volume of interesting mail in our mailbag.Should you have a question about the nature of today's global… -
A Mighty Wind
18 Jun 2009 | 3:36 pmI wash my hands of this shit.I have stated my case about the prospects and proper outlines for reform of financial regulation in this country before. Apparently, no-one with any scratch or power to do anything either a) read those pieces, b) agreed with me, or c) gave a rat's ass what I think. Fine, have it your way.As you already know, Obama, Geithner, Summers, and crew have released their 85-page white paper outlining the Administration's proposed reforms. The most I can say about it on a family website is that it appears to have been composed with the objective of winning an obscure… -
Weekend Math Lesson
12 Jun 2009 | 9:13 pmTry to imagine the awful meaning of this. You have often seen the sand on the seashore. How fine are its tiny grains! And how many of those tiny little grains go to make up the small handful which a child grasps in its play. Now imagine a mountain of that sand, a million miles high, reaching from the earth to the farthest heavens, and a million miles broad, extending to remotest space, and a million miles in thickness; and imagine such an enormous mass of countless particles of sand multiplied as often as there are leaves in the forest, drops of water in the mighty ocean, feathers on birds,… -
Calling Cloud-Cuckoo-Land
12 Jun 2009 | 4:00 pmTereus: "So why have you come here? What do you need?"Euelpides: "To talk to you."Tereus: "What for?"Euelpides: "Well, you were once a man, as we are now.You owed people money, as we do now.You loved to skip the debt, as we do now.Then you changed your nature, became a bird.You fly in circles over land and sea.You’ve learned whatever’s known to birds and men.That’s why we’ve come as suppliants to you,to ask if you can tell us of some town,where life is sheepskin soft, where we can sleep."— Aristophanes, The BirdsI suppose I do admire Evan Newmark on some level.I mean, the former… -
Hammer and Tongs
10 Jun 2009 | 3:30 pmSlumped by the courthouseWith windburned skinThat man could give a fuckAbout the grin on your faceAs you walk by, randy as a goat.He's sleepin' on papersBut he'd be warm in your coat.— Romeo Void, Never Say NeverThe Supreme Court waved through the Administration's sale of Chrysler to Fiat today. For the moment, the pillars of the Republic seem to have withstood the blow. As of this morning, the secured lending market has completely failed to implode, and I am reliably informed that the sun ignored the hullabaloo and rose in the East according to plan. Meanwhile, all those wailing and…
-
The price of everything
-
Triumph of the realists
3 Jul 2009 | 5:48 am“Genius is only a greater aptitude for patience.” - George-Louise Leclerc de Buffon. If it was Wednesday, then it had to be The Dorchester, where Citywire held their latest wealth management forum. Keynote speaker was Elroy Dimson, Professor of Investment Management and a Faculty Governor at the London Business School. Students of the markets will also know Dimson as a co-author of the magisterially weighty ‘Triumph of the Optimists: 101 years of global investment returns’ (Princeton University Press, 2002) alongside LBS… -
26 Jun 2009 | 3:30 am
26 Jun 2009 | 3:30 amWhat colour are your spectacles ? “Bank failures are caused by depositors who don’t deposit enough money to cover losses due to mismanagement.” - Dan Quayle. What a mess. Still only part way through one of the biggest banking crises in history, yet having suffered grievous losses across multiple asset classes, we don’t appear to have learned very much. Relations between the UK’s tripartite oversight authorities seem to be deteriorating into acrimony and turf warfare even as the regulatory pendulum gains in weight and… -
The geeks shall not inherit the earth
22 Jun 2009 | 2:08 am“I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expense, and my expense is equal to my wishes.” - Edward Gibbon. The brief of Eric Beinhocker’s outstanding ‘The Origin of Wealth’ (Random House, 2007) is to address the questions: what is wealth ? How is it created ? And how can we create more of it ? But it also, almost incidentally, explains how the current banking crisis happened. To read more,Download The geeks shall not inherit the earth -
Of inhuman bondage
12 Jun 2009 | 1:29 am“Bush behaved incredibly irresponsibly for eight years. On the one hand, it might seem unfair for people to blame Obama for not fixing it. On the other hand, he’s not fixing it. And not fixing it is, in a sense, making it worse.” - Alan Auerbach, economist at the University of California in Berkeley. It’s the bond market, stupid. Equity markets may or may not have turned a corner from their recent lows (the signs are improving even if the global economy is not), but government bond markets increasingly look like a grisly road… -
Of our elaborate plans, the end
8 Jun 2009 | 1:23 am“Goodbye, Great Britain. It was nice knowing you.” - Wall Street Journal editorial, 1975. “[Gordon] Brown’s Britain is like an episode of Life on Mars.” - George Osborne, UK Shadow Chancellor, at the time of the Northern Rock Crisis. Does every Labour administration end in economic chaos ? Like Andy Beckett, who has just published ‘When the lights went out: Britain in the Seventies’ (Faber & Faber), this writer was also born in 1969, and it certainly…
-
Financial Times: Undercover Economist
-
NPR Podcast: The economics of cheating on your wife
2 Jul 2009 | 1:11 amI did an interview with NPR’s “Planet Money” about what economics can tell you about infidelity. We also covered speed dating, domestic violence and changes in economic methods from Gary Becker to Stevenson and Wolfers. You can listen on the Planet Money site. -
Dear Economist: Does inflation reflect the size of Mars Bars?
26 Jun 2009 | 5:42 pmI wish I frequented the same high street as the statisticians who calculate measures of inflation. Given their calculations include “Various selected popular brands of sweets, chocolates, gum”, will they take note of a Mars Bar shrinking in size from 62.5g to 58g while remaining the same price? I make this an effective price increase of 7.76%. If not, when are those lying bastards going to stop lying to me? Ralph Corderoy Dear Mr Corderoy, Your arithmetic is correct but your objection is confused. The statisticians – or “lying bastards”, au choix – do indeed adjust for such… -
Why weather forecasts can affect your prosperity
26 Jun 2009 | 5:39 pmSpare a thought for the weather forecasters. Taken for granted when they get it right, they are invariably whipping boys when they get things wrong – despite a far better forecasting record than we economists have. They probably have more to contribute to the economy, too. A recent case in point: Bournemouth’s woes during the bank holiday at the end of May. The Met Office predicted storms, but the beach resort in fact enjoyed the sunniest day of the year. Bournemouth’s tourist office reckons the town missed out on at least 25,000 visitors and more than £1m of revenue as a result. -
Create your own economy
23 Jun 2009 | 4:52 am“Create Your Own Economy” has arrived and I cracked it open immediately. As expected, it is engaging, creative and every page makes you think differently about the world. I have read one chapter and can’t wait to read the rest. However, the book quickly surprised me. I read Tyler every day and didn’t anticipate the turn it took on page one. It was so surprising - and the surprise is a pleasant one - that I don’t feel I should say more. Except: Recommended. -
Books I am looking forward to reading
21 Jun 2009 | 8:47 amTyler and Alex have a set of textbooks out (or nearly so). Tyler’s “Create Your Own Economy“: 1. The Future of Thinking Differently 2. Hidden Creativity 3. Why Modern Culture is Like Marriage, in all its Glory 4. IM, Cell Phones, and Facebook [this chapter discusses Twitter as well] 5. The Buddha as Savior and the Professor as Shaman 6. The New Economy of Stories 7. Heroes 8. Beauty isn’t What You Think 9. Autistic Politics 10. The Future of the Universe Amit Varma’s “My Friend Sancho” James Tooley’s “The Beautiful Tree” David…
-
Vox (EU)
-
Explaining the trade collapse
2 Jul 2009 | 5:00 pmCaroline Freund , 3 July 2009The collapse in trade has been unprecedentedly severe. This column examines potential explanations. While the global fragmentation of production has increased the responsiveness of trade flows to drops in demand, trade also responds more sharply to GDP during global slowdowns than during tranquil times.Full Article: Explaining the trade collapse -
How imposed institutional reforms can work
1 Jul 2009 | 5:00 pmDaron Acemoglu, Davide Cantoni, Simon Johnson, James A Robinson, 2 July 2009Can external agents successfully impose significant institutional reforms? Many economists are sceptical. This column assesses major reforms the French imposed upon their conquered European neighbours in the years after the French Revolution. The reforms, imposed suddenly without concern for being “appropriate to local conditions”, appear to have spurred significantly faster economic growth.Full Article: How imposed institutional reforms can work -
Financial sector pro-cyclicality: Lessons from the crisis, Part II
30 Jun 2009 | 5:00 pmFrancesco Columba, Wanda Cornacchia, Carmelo Salleo, 1 July 2009As discussed in the first column in this series, greater leverage and incentives encouraging managers to take excessive risks drove a pro-cyclical new financial accelerator. This column discusses policy options to keep those forces in check.Full Article: Financial sector pro-cyclicality: Lessons from the crisis, Part II -
Do you know how much your home is worth?
29 Jun 2009 | 5:00 pmHugo Benítez-Silva, Selcuk Eren, Frank Heiland , Sergi Jiménez-Martín, 30 June 2009How did we get a housing bubble? This column describes how well households predict the market values of their homes. Most homeowners overestimate the value of their properties by 5% to 10%, primarily due to the large expected capital gains implicit in the self-reported home values. Overly optimistic expectations about the evolution of house prices may have planted the seed of the current mortgage crisis in the US.Full Article: Do you know how much your home is worth? -
Financial sector pro-cyclicality: Lessons from the crisis, Part I
29 Jun 2009 | 5:00 pmFrancesco Columba, Wanda Cornacchia, Carmelo Salleo, 30 June 2009The current crisis has made obvious the power of the financial sector to amplify business cycle dynamics. This column, the first half of a series, focuses on how leverage, capital regulation, and managers’ incentives contributed to the crisis.Full Article: Financial sector pro-cyclicality: Lessons from the crisis, Part I
-
Cafe Hayek
-
What's Behind Foreclosures? (by Don Boudreaux)
3 Jul 2009 | 4:54 amWriting in today's Wall Street Journal, economist Stan Liebowitz reports the results of his careful study of the data on mortgage foreclosures. Liebowitz finds that the chief reason homeowners default is negative equity in their homes (and, hence, not upward adjustments in the interest rates owed on ARM mortgage loans, or any other of the alleged culprits). Here are some key paragraphs:Many policy makers and ordinary people blame the rise of foreclosures squarely on subprime mortgage lenders who presumably misled borrowers into taking out complex loans at low initial interest rates. Those… -
On America's Middle Class (by Don Boudreaux)
2 Jul 2009 | 2:09 pmIn two of his Forbes columns, NYU's Thomas Cooley challenges - with data - the widespread misunderstanding that America's middle-class is disappearing. Here, and then here.(HT Greg Mankiw) The Terry Fitzgerald work that Cooley mentions was mentioned here at the Cafe a while back.I raise, though, one objection to Cooley's otherwise excellent columns. In the first one linked to above, he credits technological change for the explosive economic growth of the 1980s and 1990s. I don't accept technology as an explanation. A rush of technology has causes; it must be explained. Technology… -
The Psychology of Climate Change and Intervention (by Don Boudreaux)
2 Jul 2009 | 6:34 amWriting in today's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof argues that we're not as frightened of climate change as science counsels that we should be, and that our fear's inadequacy is rooted in our evolutionary past. We are, Kristof correctly says, evolved to fear immediate, visible threats and not so much those threats - such as climate change - that are more distant, more speculative, and less visible.Contrary to Kristof's conclusion, though, this fact doesn't necessarily justify climate-change regulation. The same evolved structure of our brains that causes us to discount relatively distant… -
Unintended Consequences (by Don Boudreaux)
2 Jul 2009 | 6:18 amHere' my answer to my pop quiz; it's in the form of a letter-to-the-editor that I sent yesterday to the Washington Post:You report that the "International Trade Commission recommended on Monday that President Barack Obama impose additional duties for three years on imports of low-cost Chinese tires the panel says are harming U.S. industry" ("U.S. trade panel favors stiffer duties on Chinese tires," June 29).Such a move by Mr. Obama would not save U.S. jobs on net, because fewer dollars spent on imports means fewer dollars that foreigners have to spend on U.S. exports or to invest in the U.S. -
Hi! Don Boudreaux Here for Free Markets!!! (by Don Boudreaux)
2 Jul 2009 | 3:51 amIt's easy for Very Smart People to poke fun at the likes of television pitchmen such as the late Billy Mays. But John Stossel explains why such disdain is unwarranted.
-
Dollars & Sense blog
-
7 Banks Fail Today: 52 For the Year So Far
2 Jul 2009 | 8:41 pmSeven banks were taken over by the FDIC on Thursday, six of them based in Illinois. A total of 52 banks have failed so far in 2009, an average of 2 each week.Today's bank failures cost the FDIC over $300 million.According to a report in February, up to 1,000 banks may fail in the next 3-5 years. -
Roubini on Details in the Payrolls Data
2 Jul 2009 | 3:49 pmU.S. Job Report Suggests that Green Shoots are Mostly Yellow WeedsNouriel Roubini's Global EconomonitorNouriel Roubini | Jul 2, 2009The June employment report suggests that the alleged 'green shoots' are mostly yellow weeds that may eventually turn into brown manure. The employment report shows that conditions in the labor market continue to be extremely weak, with job losses in June of over 460,000. With the current rate of job losses, it is very clear that the unemployment rate could reach 10 percent by later this summer, around August or September, and will be closer to 10.5 percent if not… -
Goodbye, Green Shoots
2 Jul 2009 | 3:41 pmThe FT's John Authers (video clip) on market reaction to today's US payrolls data, which were far worse than expected. -
Male Worker Jobless Rate In June: 10.6 Percent
2 Jul 2009 | 10:47 amA summary of today's BLS report from Bob Feldman:The official "seasonally adjusted" unemployment rate for male workers in the United States over 16 years-of-age increased from 10.5 percent to 10.6 percent between May 2009 and June 2009, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data.The official "seasonally adjusted" unemployment rate for white male workers increased from 9 percent to 9.2 percent between May 2009 and June 2009.For all U.S. workers, the "not seasonally adjusted" jobless rate increased from 9.1 percent to 9.7 percent between May 2009 and June 2009.The official "not… -
Delasantellis on Realtors' Latest Lobby Effort
1 Jul 2009 | 5:55 pmFrom his Asia Times column:Cheating still beats real workBy Julian DelasantellisAsia TimesJuly 2d, 2009A colleague recently relayed a story about her experience as an observer at a faculty/student disciplinary hearing for a pre-law undergraduate charged with cheating.Apparently, this young man had come around to the belief that, when it came to engaging in conduct that could get him expelled, in for a dime-in for a dollar. Just in the space of a single term, his teachers had found him copying from a test, rifling through the course's graduate assistant notebook looking for a test, and, word…
-
Economic Policy Institute
-
Stimulus is working, but may not be enough
2 Jul 2009 | 2:59 pm -
Jobs Picture for July 2, 2009
2 Jul 2009 | 2:00 pm -
Fewer jobs today than in May of 2000
2 Jul 2009 | 11:01 am -
Mass layoffs at highest level since at least 1995
1 Jul 2009 | 4:01 am -
Black Americans face an especially tough job market
29 Jun 2009 | 11:38 am
-
Japan Economy Watch
-
Consumer Sentiment Rises As Exports Slump - But Where, Oh Where Is The Recovery?
24 Jun 2009 | 2:48 amJapan put in a pretty negative export performance in May. Even shipments to China show little sign of improvement, and the general impression is that hopes for a quick recovery in global demand are looking very premature.On the other hand a 42 per cent year-on-year fall in imports in May left Japan with a trade surplus of Y299.8bn for the month - something that will help push gross domestic -
Facebook Links
20 Jun 2009 | 2:48 amQuietly clicking my way through Bloomberg last Sunday afternoon, I came across this:Facebook Members Register Names at 550 a SecondFacebook Inc., the world’s largest social-networking site, said members registered new user names at a rate of more than 550 a second after the company offered people the chance to claim a personalized Web address.Facebook started accepted registrations at midnight -
Japanese nationals and $135 billion
12 Jun 2009 | 11:39 pmBorder bust equals possible international incident-missing TARP funds?I have written a bit regarding this at the above link...a developing story worth at least a glance.Scott -
No "Green Shoots" Here - German and Japanese Capital Goods Output Continues Its Fall
10 Jun 2009 | 12:20 amWell, as I was busying myself yesterday scratching around looking for green shoots in Turkey. I couldn't help notice this coming in over the radar from Germany, courtesy of Bloomberg:German exports fell more than economists forecast in April as the global crisis restrained demand, keeping Europe’s largest economy mired in a recession. Sales abroad, adjusted for working days and seasonal changes, -
Bernanke Choppers make an appearance...in Japan
3 Jun 2009 | 11:28 pmThe facetious title of this piece refers of course to US Federal Reserve chairman Benjamin Bernanke's well known reference to dropping bundles of cash from helicopters as a last resort to fight deflation.Edward Hugh noted in the previous post here that "The government...have begun distributing 12,000 yen ($125) to each resident in March to encourage spending." I've found a few reactions to this
-
Roland Manarin's Blog
-
It’s Your Money Radio Show - 6/28/09
On this week's program: Good news on the economy continues to pour in Investment diversification - How it has changed What does "Hedge" really mean? Reasons why we feel converting a Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA makes NO sense Listen now! Related posts:It’s Your Money Radio Show - 6/14/09It’s Your Money Radio Show - 5/24/09It’s ... -
No Worries on the Budget Deficit
Many folks wonder why I'm not panicking about the deficit and why I'm not predicting hyperinflation soon. Check out the below article and I think you will feel better. Link: A Relative Perspective No related posts. -
It’s Your Money Radio Show - 6/21/09
On this week's program: Next Omaha seminar starting this Thursday - Register here Future of the Federal Reserve's leadership Potential consequences of Obama's 2010 tax proposals Listen now! Related posts:It’s Your Money Radio Show - 5/31/09It’s Your Money Radio Show - 6/7/09It’s Your Money Radio Show - 6/14/09 -
Europeans Dumping Political Movement That Gave Them Nanny State
Of late, the winning political formula in Europe is simple: Promise to ease heavy tax and regulatory burdens and shake up stagnant economies. Across the Continent, the left is in disarray. France's Socialist Party, which last won a Presidential election in the 1980s, refuses to move to the center -- and ... -
Omaha Weathering the Economic Storm
BusinessWeek - Local residents joke about the real estate market in Omaha. "We didn't get invited to the party," they say, "and we don't have a hangover." The proof: Prices slipped less than 1% in Nebraska's biggest city last year, compared with an 18% drop for the U.S. Now Omaha looks ...
-
Citizen Economists
-
The Australian Yield Curve and Mortgage Rates
3 Jul 2009 | 6:06 amBelow is a short commentary on mortgage rates I received from Jackarine Ludwig of Aggregated Awareness: The Mystery Behind the Parabolic Yield Curve is a nice report by Gary Dorsch, an American chartist I follow. Rarely does Australia get a mention in his reports. It is good that he’s done so now. His charts a good, because they tie in with political & economic events. Although I don’t see the rise in the Australian yield curve as a mystery. And whether Wayne Swan wishes to call it the fault of the ‘bond vigilantes’ in the US Debt markets or not is irrelevant. Fact… -
Can the Perceptions of Participants Influence Market Fundamentals?
2 Jul 2009 | 11:26 am“Reflexivity can be interpreted as a circularity, or two way feedback loop, between the participants’ views and the actual state of affairs. People base their decisions not on the actual situation that confronts them but on their perception or interpretation of that situation. Their decisions make an impact on the situation … and changes in the situation are liable to change their perceptions … . The two functions operate concurrently, not sequentially” (George Soros, “The New Paradigm for Financial Markets”, 2008, p 10). “Many critics of reflexivity claimed that I… -
US Economy Grows for Second Consecutive Month
2 Jul 2009 | 4:50 amOn Wednesday the Institute for Supply Management published its manufacturing report for June 2009. It’s overall index (PMI) bumped up for the sixth straight month and stood at 44.8%. The reading suggests, “the overall economy grew for the second consecutive month” in June. The reading also shows the overall manufacturing sector still on track for a return to growth in the fourth quarter of this year. Norbert J. Ore, chair of ISM’s Survey Committee was quoted as saying “Manufacturing continues to contract at a slower rate, but the trends in the indexes are… -
A Simple Plan to Save California
1 Jul 2009 | 10:55 amSometime in the next couple of months The Federal Government is going to give the state of California a lot of money.After lavishing more than a trillion dollars onBanks, Insurers and Auto Companies, there is a 0% probability that the government will sit back and let the largeststate fail. There real question is how do we go about propping up California.Whether we like it or not, California will set a precedent for the rest of the country.Believe it or not, California is not the only State struggling to keep its head above water.Congress and the administration need to have a strategy ready… -
Quantitative Easing By Fed Is Predictably Failing
1 Jul 2009 | 4:34 amThe Federal Reserve has embarked on a perilous journey of quantitative easing. On 18 March 2009 I predicted the Federal Reserve Will Fail With Quantitative Easing. In the June 2009 Special Issue from Sprott Asset Management the billionaire Eric Sprott declared, “The Federal Reserve’s policy of Quantitative Easing is failing. The US budget is ludicrous, spending is out of control, spending promises are out of control, the world knows it – and we know it.” The policy of Global Quantitative Easing is going to result in significant additional turmoil and destruction…
-
Block's Indicator of Sustainable Growth
-
Reducing CO2 emissions in US buildings
by Ray Block Residential and commercial buildings account for almost 39 per cent of total US energy consumption, with residential 21 per cent and commercial 18 per cent. Buildings represent a high 38 per cent of US carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. US greenhouse gas emissions by sector in 2007 was made ... -
More on US climate and energy legislation
By Ray Block The historic American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACTS) HR 2454 on Friday June 26, squeaked through the House of Representatives, with the compromise bill 219 to 212, avoiding defeat only through eight liberal Republicans crossing the floor and siding with the Democrat majority. Although the tough minded Speaker ... -
More on US climate and energy legislation
by Ray Block The historic American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACTS) HR 2454 on Friday June 26 saw a compromise bill just squeak through the House of Representatives 219 to 212. But the Bill would have been defeated, if eight liberal Republicans had not sided with the Democrat majority. Although the tough minded Speaker ... -
US Senate yet to decide on cap and trade
by Ray Block There’s many a slip between the cup and lip, so says the old proverb. Friday June 26’s vote in the US House of Representatives for ACES- American Clean Energy and Security was very close. The Congress Daily had suggested a photo finish, which finished up at 219 in ... -
Electric cars very much part of the future
By Ray Block Just as in 1900 in New York, it won’t be long before we see rows of electric cars, whether hybrids or plug in electric cars. The big news on June 23 was not so much the US Government subsidising Nissan, the Renault affiliate to build electric cars in ...
-
Economy Watch
-
The Big Money
17 Dec 2018 | 5:38 pmParty Poopers Did Wells Fargo save any money by canceling its lavish event? The Way We Beg Depression Diary, Part 5 -
Stat header
18 Sep 2018 | 9:53 am5.5% Q1 GDP | 5.42% avg. 30-year mortgage | 9.5%Unemployment -
Actual Unemployment Rate Rises To 16.5%
2 Jul 2009 | 11:50 amUPDATED at 1:50 p.m. with analysis: The nation's official unemployment rate in June rose from 9.4 to 9.5 percent, its highest in 26 years. How bad is that? Pretty bad, writes Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute: "This is the only recession1 since the Great Depression to wipe out all jobs growth from the previous business cycle, a testament both to the enormity of the current crisis and to the extreme weakness of jobs growth over the business cycle from 2000 to 2007." Ouch. But it's even worse than that. As we like to note at The Ticker, the nation's actual unemployment rate in… -
Markets Dive At Opening
2 Jul 2009 | 7:52 amWall Street dropped sharply at opening this morning as markets responded to worse-than-expected unemployment news released today. In the first 20 minutes of trading, the Dow is down 155 points, or about 1.8 percent. The broader S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq are both down about 2 percent. National unemployment rose from 9.4 to 9.5 percent this morning, as employers slashed 467,000 jobs from the economy in June, a greater-than-expected number, The Post's Neil Irwin reports. In an interview on CNBC moments ago, Christina Romer -- President Obama's chief economic adviser -- said the president… -
Day Three of GM Bankruptcy Court
2 Jul 2009 | 6:45 amGeneral Motors is before U.S. District Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber for the third - and likely last - day of hearings on the sale of the automaker's assets to a new, government-owned GM. Today, those opposing certain aspects of the sale will continue presenting their closing arguments. The Obama administration is aiming to complete the restructuring of the largest U.S. automaker in as little as 30 to 40 days, a Treasury official testified Wednesday. Today is Day 32. --Tomoeh Murakami Tse Follow today's events inside the courtroom on Twitter below and sign up to follow The Ticker on Twitter.
-
Credit Slips
-
Bankruptcy Filings Decline 6% in June
3 Jul 2009 | 11:21 amThe most recent bankruptcy filing data from Automated Access to Court Electronic Records (AACER) show a 6.1% decline in the U.S. daily bankruptcy filing rate. The were about 124,800 bankruptcy filings in June which, spread over the 22 business days in the month, is a daily bankruptcy filing rate of 5,672. In May, the daily bankruptcy filing rate was 6,038. I do not take the dip in bankruptcy filings as strong evidence that the end of the recession is just around the corner. First, there is the usual caution against reading too much into the ups and downs of a monthly indicator. Over the past… -
Bankruptcy as a Disqualifying Factor for Child Custody?
2 Jul 2009 | 8:21 amSeveral sources, including our friends over at Bankruptcy Beat, are reporting that Michael Jackson's mother, who has been awarded temporary custody of her three grandchildren, might have trouble gaining final custody because of a 1999 bankruptcy filing. Washington attorney Beth Kaufman is quoted as saying, "I think it would be a negative factor but not necessarily a disqualifier. It could indicate that she is not capable of sound financial management.” It is often said that bankruptcy experts and family law experts don't know know as much about the other field as we should. -
The Case for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency
1 Jul 2009 | 7:42 pmYesterday, the White House released proposed statutory languagefor the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). The bill is long, but the CFPA, the brainchild of our co-blogger Elizabeth Warren, is by far the boldest part of the Obama financial restructuring plan. I’d also venture to say that it is the most important. In this post I want to underscore why we need a CFPA. In future blog posts, I hope to come back to what a CFPA will and won’t do. Simply put, we need a CFPA because the current regulatory structure doesn’t work and it… -
In the Home Stretch
1 Jul 2009 | 11:43 amNote: The following was just sent from Credit Slips blogger Stephen Lubben: "At the GM hearing, although closing arguments may run over to tomorrow. I don't think there has been anything thus far that would prevent the sale from going forward." -
Health Insurance to Go Broke With
1 Jul 2009 | 7:17 amAn article in today;s New York Times chronicles how medical debt can financially ruin U.S. citizens even with health insurance. Policies with limits, often hidden from the consumer, quickly run out and leave the insured with mounds of debt. This story comes on the heels of an academic study by Credit Slips bloggers Debb Thorne and Elizabeth Warren and their co-authors, David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, showing an increase between 2001 and 2007 in the number percentage of medically related bankruptcies. I sometimes wonder how persons reading from outside the U.S. react to these sorts…
-
Brad Setser: Follow the Money
-
The CFR’s financial crisis guide
3 Jul 2009 | 6:51 amIt isn’t quite a yield curve mambo, but Paul Swartz and I did pull together a few Google motion charts to help illustrate the origins — at least in our view — of the financial crisis of 2007-08. Click on motion charts after following this link. What’s more, the Council’s website has an interactive tool that lets you play with the charts … Enjoy the charts over the holiday weekend (at least in the United States). And let me know what you think. Are there any charts that we used that didn’t work? Are there charts that we should have included but… -
“A more balanced economy might allow the world to live with a less perfect financial system”
2 Jul 2009 | 5:55 amMike Dooley and Peter Garber argue (at VoxEU) that the recent crisis has nothing to do with “Bretton Woods 2” — an international monetary system where reserve growth in the “periphery” financed deficits in the center. They write: “the crisis was caused by ineffective supervision and regulation of financial markets in the US and other industrial countries …. [NOT BY] ….”current account imbalances, particularly by net flows of savings from emerging markets to the US,” “easy monetary policy in the US” or “financial innovation. … the idea that fraud and… -
One graph to rule them all …
1 Jul 2009 | 5:52 amIf I had to pick a single graph to explain the evolution of the United States’ balance of payments – and thus, indirectly, the entire story of the world’s macroeconomic “imbalances” – this would be it. All data is in dollar billions, and is presented as a rolling four quarter sum.* The red line is the United States current account deficit. The black line is the United States financing need – defined as the sum of the current account deficit plus US outward FDI and US purchases of foreign long-term securities.** The dip in the total US financing need from mid 2005 to mid 2006… -
The savings glut. Controversy guaranteed.
30 Jun 2009 | 5:23 amFew topics are quite as polarizing as the “savings glut.” The very term is often considered an attempt to shift responsibility for the current crisis away from the United States. That is unfortunate. It is quite possible to believe that the buildup of vulnerabilities that led to the current crisis was a product both of a rise in savings in key emerging markets, a rise that — with more than a bit of help from emerging market governments — produced an unnatural uphill flow of capital from the emerging world to the advanced economies, and policy failures in the U.S. and Europe. -
The evolution of the United States’ external balance sheet in the last decade (wonky)
28 Jun 2009 | 6:02 pmOn Friday I tried to show why the US net international investment position deteriorated in 2008 – and also why it didn’t deteriorate in the previous years. Even after the market and currency gains of the past evaporated in 2008, the US net debt isn’t quite as big as an analyst who looked at the United States large cumulative current account deficit would expect. Some of the debt that the US thinks it sells to the rest of the world every year seems to disappear when the US goes out and tries to count the total amount owes the world – and how much equity in US companies have been sold…
-
Megan McArdle
-
When Blogs Were Young
2 Jul 2009 | 8:37 amLaura at 11D has an absolutely terrific post up about how the blogosphere has changed over the last six or seven years. The upshot is that it's a lot harder to make it big in the blogosphere, while the old A-listers are burning out. Blogging more than a thousand words a day, every day, is mentally exhausting, and if you aren't getting paid for it, eventually, your life intrudes.Back in the day, new bloggers were emerging all the time. Now it's happening much more slowly, and the old bloggers have gravitated to various professional positions. Is the new media revolution over? -
Department of Invidious Comparisons
1 Jul 2009 | 10:15 pmFelix Salmon notes who California feels is important enough to pay in cash. Legislators yes, blind and disabled people, no. Natch. -
Wal-Mart and Health Insurance: The Theories of the Case
1 Jul 2009 | 2:42 pmI find it hard to believe that none of the liberal commentators breathlessly celebrating Wal-Mart's "capitulation" on national health care have even entertained the most parsimonious explanation: that Wal-Mart is in favor of this because it raises the barriers to entry in the retail market, and hammers Wal-Mart's competition. Yet somehow, this appears nowhere in any of the analysis. These are the explanations that they found more plausible:1. Wal-Mart wants to change its image, which is better accomplished by securing a massive regulatory mandate than by, say, insuring… -
Old Media Blues
1 Jul 2009 | 2:18 pmJack Shafer writes a lovely column celebrating the rise of new media, and pooh-poohing the old guard who are just afraid of competition from upstarts:Let me say it another way: The barriers of entry into the journalism business have been battered down, making it easier than ever to enter the profession. That will read as small consolation to the journalists who have had their publications shot out from under them--the Rocky Mountain News,the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Ann Arbor News (come July 23), and magazines too numerous to tally. But please notice that I'm not saying there has never… -
Aspen Bulletin: Austan Goolsbee Explains It All
1 Jul 2009 | 8:56 amI haven't gotten to attend many panels this year, because I've been on too many. But of the ones I have gone to, the Austan Goolsbee Q&A is by far the liveliest. People who attend Aspen are very successful, and the questions he's being asked hit close to home for them: marginal income tax rates, taxation of worldwide corporate profits, H1B visas for foreign graduate students educated in America.The questions for Goolsbee are much more hostile than they were last year. I don't know whether to attribute this to the economy, or the fact that the disadvantages of…
-
NYT > Business
-
Your Money: A Day to Tackle the Financial To-Do List
3 Jul 2009 | 12:14 pmTaking time, 10 or 12 hours, to tackle ever-postponed money tasks and clear the books can be lucrative. -
A Subdued Trading Day in Asia and Europe
3 Jul 2009 | 9:52 amTrading has been subdued as the United States has a day off and many in London focused on the Wimbledon tennis semifinals. -
Unauthorized Trades Cost London Oil Broker Millions
3 Jul 2009 | 8:54 amAn employee at the London oil broker made the transactions, which also contributed to a spike in prices. -
Shortcuts: Raising Children Who Care in Times That Need It
3 Jul 2009 | 7:34 amPhilanthropy is not only for the wealthy. You can bring children into the fold by letting them figure out how they would like to contribute. -
Patient Money: Weight Loss on a Sliding Financial Scale
3 Jul 2009 | 7:17 amA dieter’s commitment to weight loss can sometimes be linked to how much money he or she is willing to spend.
-
InvestorCentric
-
When Is The Obama Stimulus Going To Start Creating Jobs?
3 Jul 2009 | 6:00 amWith the unemployment rate reaching the highest level in 26 years, the obvious question is: when is the Obama stimulus going to start creating some jobs? Shouldn't the funds be used to put people to work immediately rather than investing in long-term infrastructure projects that could take months to start? The following post from Economist's View discusses this topic further.The stimulus package had two components, new spending and tax cuts. Everybody knew that the spending component would take time to put into place, six months or more for a lot of the infrastructure projects, and that meant… -
Water: The World's Most Valuable Resource
3 Jul 2009 | 5:55 amIt may be hard to believe that the stuff that flows freely from our kitchen faucets is one of the most valuable resources in the world. However, as the world population approaches 9 billion people in 2050, this limited resource will become tremendously more valuable. See the following post from Daily Wealth to learn how you can profit from the opportunities in water investment.If you're interested in water investing – like I am – Steve Hoffmann is someone you need to pay attention to.I recently picked up Hoffmann's new book, Planet Water: Investing in the World's Most Valuable Resource. -
Why You Shouldn't Listen To George Soros
2 Jul 2009 | 6:00 amWhen you hear legendary investors like Soros or Buffett make positive comments about the economy, that doesn't necessarily mean you should go all in. Keith Fitz-Gerald from Money Morning discusses how you should interpret the comments from people like Soros or Buffett and what you can learn from their approaches to investing. Billionaire investor George Soros thinks the worst of the global financial crisis is behind us.In a June 20 interview with Polish television, the Hungarian-born Soros acknowledged that this has been the most serious crisis he’s seen in his lifetime, but said,… -
PPIP May Have Succeeded Before It Was Ever Launched
2 Jul 2009 | 5:55 amAlthough the Public-Private Investment Program may never launch with its promised luster, it may have already achieved its goal. An interesting article by Noam Scheiber suggests that the idea of PPIP may have improved Wall Street's spirits enough to allow banks to raise private capital on their own. Mark Thoma from Economist's View discusses this in the following post. The Treasury view, Free Exchange: ...Noam Scheiber has a nice post up examining the view of PPIP—the plan to sell subsidised toxic assets at auction—from inside the Treasury. Here's a quote from a Treasury official:...If… -
Why National Health Care Insurance And Cap-And-Trade Are Terrible For The Economy
1 Jul 2009 | 6:00 amIs this the right time for the government to pursue ambitious and potentially expensive new reform to healthcare and the environment? Peter D. Schiff argues that such action are not only detrimental to the economy, but have little chance of achieving success. See the following post from Money Morning.Misguided government policies have already dealt vicious body blows to our economy, but that hasn’t stopped politicians last week from launching two new kicks to the recovery - a national health insurance plan and a carbon emissions regulation system called “cap-and-trade.”Even if these…
-
The Aleph Blog
-
Correlation Does Not Imply Causation; A Study of Sector Correlations
1 Jul 2009 | 10:54 pmThere was an interesting post on Bloomberg regarding asset class correlations, and a lot of blogs wrote about it, including Abnormal Returns, which did a nice summary, and expanded the argument to university endowments. Part of the issue here is that under conditions of stress, assets separate into two simple categories — safe and risky. To what degree can an asset be turned into cash at anything near its fair value under stressed conditions? I ran into something similar back in 2006, so I wrote this CC post: David Merkel Make the Money Sweat, Man! We Got Retirements to Fund, and… -
Overleverage, and a Failure of Credit
29 Jun 2009 | 10:29 pmJust a brief post here. The Economist features a simple symmetric model to try to explain cycles in the financial markets. Cute model, but it can’t explain booms and busts. The key missing feature is credit that can default. Defaults are asymmetric. With bonds you can make a little with high certainty, or lose a lot with low certainty. This is true of all lending, leaving aside convertibles. In a true bust, defaults are rampant, as badly capitalized firms fail amid weakening demand. During booms, some firms magnify the results by levering up (borrowing more). This is… -
The Benefits of Dumb Regulation
29 Jun 2009 | 9:07 pmApologies to readers. I have been gone last week at my denomination’s annual meeting. As I often say at this time of year, I never work harder than at that time, so please forgive my lack of posts. As it is now, I am worn out, but at least I am home. Home is my favorite place. I am presently reading a book by Justin Fox, The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street. So far, a good book. He has a recent blog post that impressed me as well: Dumbing Down Regulation. Should regulation be dumb? In one sense yes, in others, no. It… -
A Redacted Copy of the June FOMC Statement
24 Jun 2009 | 1:59 pmApril 2009 June 2009 Comments Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in March indicates that the economy has continued to contract, though the pace of contraction appears to be somewhat slower. Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in April suggests that the pace of economic contraction is slowing. Conditions in financial markets have generally improved in recent months. The FOMC is following trends in the financial markets.The stock market is higher, and credit spreads are tighter, but what of tomorrow? Household spending has shown signs… -
Stating the Case; No State Prosperity, and National Prosperity is Questionable
21 Jun 2009 | 10:22 pmOne thing that I watch closely is the health of the finances of the states. Because they don’t have a printing press, and most of them have to balance their budgets, they are a better read on the health of the economy than national statistics. As it is, states are cutting their budgets drastically because their tax collection is down dramatically. California is a leading example here. Will it refuse to pay, and what of its municipalities? How many will file for Chapter 9, like Vallejo? My guess is that many municipalities will file Chapter 9, but that California will avoid…
-
Mark to Market
-
Healthcare M&A Continues to Lead the Way
30 Jun 2009 | 6:23 amDespite the steep decline in overall merger and acquisition activity within the past eighteen months, the volume of transactions occuring within healthcare specifically has led the way in the capital markets’ turnaround (if you can call it that). While I don’t believe we’ve actually reached a point of actual turnaround yet, it is nonetheless encouraging to see more deals happening, despite the overall markets continuing to struggle and the economy continuing to experience negative growth. With that said, here is a snapshot of the deal activity in healthcare alone, over… -
Upgrades, Changes, and the Next Phase
29 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pmIf you are a veteran at Mark to Market, then you will no doubt realize we have made some changes to the look, feel, and organization of some things around here. I mentioned a few weeks ago that Mark to Market is entering a new phase of its life cycle and growth, and as such, we are proud to announce the first aspect of that, which is a design upgrade. But that’s not all … Ultimately, this is the first in a series of upgrades and changes we the owners of this site will be implementing throughout the rest of the year. As our audience has grown and attention on our work has… -
Building our House on the Sand
29 Jun 2009 | 5:34 pmI am excited to announce the completion and release of a new paper (click here to download), which addresses what I believe is one of the core fundamental aspects of the global financial crisis. In this research, I argue how hubris and the reliance on poorly managed debt were major culprits in the crisis that has cost our economy, financial system and country so much. As I wrote this piece in a manner that would communicate some of the basics behind the collapse of America’s modern financial system for both economic veterans and neophytes, it is my intention that this piece will… -
Becker-Posner on US Healthcare
20 Jun 2009 | 6:47 amOn their Becker-Posner Blog, University of Chicago faculty members Dr. Gary Becker and Richard Posner outline their views on the current discussion around policy affecting the US healthcare delivery system. It is no surprise to me that both professors hit the nail on the head, addressing a number of common misconceptions that the public (and many policymakers) have about healthcare. These are also some of the typical fallacies that people like Paul Krugman wants the public to believe, even though the empirical evidence is overwhelmingly against much of the policies being pushed today by… -
Humility Through Execution
19 Jun 2009 | 6:07 pmI’ve always maintained that if VC’s are the ultimate entrepreneurs, then private equity investors are the ultimate operators. Starting a business is one thing, but turning a business around and finding value out distress, all the while carrying a hundred ton weight on your back is entirely another. Perhaps it’s something akin to racing speed boats versus attempting to maneuver an aircraft carrier through an obstacle course. A recent article at CNBC.com talks a little further as to why private equity investors are in do-or-die mode, trying to prove they can drive those…
-
Notes On Credit Spreads
-
On Inflation, Martin Feldstein is Wrong
30 Jun 2009 | 5:20 pmMartin Feldstein’s column, (June 29, 2009) on inflation opines that while federal stimulus is still necessary, a combination of looming deficits, federal reserve bond purchases, and skittishness of foreign investors are pushing yields on the 10 Year Treasury up to alarming levels. Feldstein’s major premise is detailed in the second paragraph of his column: Higher Yields have led to higher mortgage rates, reducing home buying, depressing net worth tremendously in the last six months. Further, lower home prices have caused more defaults and “weakened bank balance… -
The Fed’s Balance Sheet - Deflation Preventing and not Inflation Causing
26 May 2009 | 9:14 pmThe Federal Reserve released its combined 2008 Financial Statements on April 20, 2009. 2008 was stunning, with the balance sheet growing from $915 billion to $2.245 trillion. The major increases were in the commercial paper facility, foreign currency swaps, and term asset backed facility. Essentially - stabilizing mechanisms for short term market operations (both foreign and domestic) to continue. The increase of $1.33 trillion is slightly larger than the gain in US GDP from $13.178 trillion to $14.264 trillion from 2006 to 2008. Essentially, the gains in US GDP from 2006 - when the… -
Ireland, Currency Controls, and Must Reads
21 Apr 2009 | 9:38 pmPaul Krugman writes this week about the Irish Economy. In his column and blog, Paul notes Ireland is painfully transitioning, raising taxes to keep its fiscal position in line. Let’s pause. If you have not read Lords of Finance yet by Liaquat Ahamed, stop reading this blog (or any other) and give the book a go. It is the cornerstone to understanding the current economic/financial crisis and comprehending possible solutions of both short and long duration. In Lords of Finance, Ahamed writes of an eerily similar situation during the 1920s when Great Britain, starved for credit to funds… -
The Treasury Plan - Pricing 101
29 Mar 2009 | 9:10 pmPaul Krugman, in a blog post last week, offers an explanation for how private investors would think about asset purchases under the treasury plan. With no disrespect, here is my explanation: Assume the purchase of a “legacy asset” (or purchase of a toxic asset, or the purchase of a pool of subprime mortgage) is a the purchase of cash flows for a period of 20 years. Many mortgages go out beyond 20 years, but let’s keep this at 20 for argument’s sake. How much would I be willing to pay? Well, a review of march-27-world-bond-yields, with at least an A rating, that go out… -
Leverage in the Sports World
28 Feb 2009 | 12:26 pmIf you want to read about the econonic downturn, leverage (and over leverage) in the sports world, you must read Bill Simmons latest column. It is amazing and scary at the same time. And he’s right about the refs. Simmons however is not right this is just an American phenominom: a lot of European Football clubs are going through the same problems.
-
Energy & Society
-
While waiting for the results from the vote on Waxman-Markey
26 Jun 2009 | 2:07 pmRead this posting by the Earth Institute's blog on turning CO2 into a solid carbonate. Having the first large-scale demonstration facility come online in September is a huge thing. Let's hope it works.Who wants some limestone? -
Message from Detroit to Capitol Hill
8 Jun 2009 | 12:52 pmJim Oberstar, the chairman of US House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has proposed a higher fuel tax, making many Democrats nervous about what is "too much" in these difficult times. Obama also opposes the tax hike. I'm inclined to question the logic behind the opposition, whether it's populism or domestic realpolitik.Dave McCurdy, President of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers was on EETV today talking about Detroit's challenges on the path to lower car emissions. He said one thing the Obama administration should take heed of:But I think there has to be price signals,… -
People who get us into trouble
29 Apr 2009 | 3:41 pmI found this latest piece by Robert J. Samuelson via Paul Krugman, who nails some of the most disturbing fallacies in the column:I don’t think there’s a single thing there that’s right. What on earth do business cycles have to do with it? The models may assume growth based on past trends, but they DO ask whether emissions policy would greatly slow growth — and the answer is no. Consumers aren’t assumed to “quickly” use less — the time frame in these models is decades long. And new supplies don’t “magically” appear — they respond to price incentives, which is what… -
The Paradox of Plenty
20 Apr 2009 | 5:23 pmOk, it's been some time since my last post. I'll try to get back to speed with shorter posts on what's happening. Interaction Quarterly of Stanford recently published an article, which reminds us that NOCs (national oil companies) have often neglected new exploration investments, and the oil revenue is rather used for other government expenditure (a recent exception is Brazil's Petrobras). The "sovereign" or political risk in the oil producing countries is often too high for non-NOCs to do exploration solo. There's still plenty of oil in the ground; it's just harder to get to, and new… -
IEA's Roles
18 Mar 2009 | 10:17 amIt's been almost two weeks since I wrote my last post. I've asked myself why, and there's a really simple logical causal chain. As everyone else, I've been preoccupied with the global economic crisis. I've wanted to comment on the effects of the economic crisis on the energy sector. However, my best source for global energy market statistics is the International Energy Agency, which will publish its 2008 energy statistics sometime in 2010. Hence, the best I can do is to speculate what the effects of the current crisis are.I understand that not all countries follow or assemble their energy…
-
Quoting the Crisis
-
Bank Failure Thurdsay Extravaganza
3 Jul 2009 | 1:33 amfinancegeek: crazynutjob: The FDIC took advantage of the long weekend. Seven banks were added to the FDIC Failed Bank List: Founders Bank, Worth, IL — Total deposits of $848.9 million and an estimated hit to the FDIC fund of $188.5 million. Millennium State Bank of Texas, Dallas, TX — Total deposits of $115 million and an estimated hit to the FDIC fund of $47 million. The First National Bank of Danville, Danville, IL — Total deposits of $147 million and an estimated hit to the FDIC fund of $24 million. The Elizabeth State Bank, Elizabeth, IL — Total deposits of $50.4 million and an… -
"He suspected Joe Cassano didn’t understand what he had done, but even so Park was shocked by..."
2 Jul 2009 | 10:42 am“He suspected Joe Cassano didn’t understand what he had done, but even so Park was shocked by the magnitude of the misunderstanding: these piles of consumer loans were now 95 percent U.S. subprime mortgages. Park then conducted a little survey, asking the people around A.I.G. F.P. most directly involved in insuring them how much subprime was in them. He asked Gary Gorton, a Yale professor who had helped build the model Cassano used to price the credit-default swaps. Gorton guessed that the piles were no more than 10 percent subprime. He asked a risk analyst in London, who guessed 20… -
California's budget gap deepens $2 billion overnight
2 Jul 2009 | 9:29 amCalifornia's budget gap deepens $2 billion overnight: crazynutjob: State budget accounting is strange. State functions happen by default. To contain the budget, they have to be interrupted by the legislature. Otherwise, a single tick of a clock can cause a deficit to swell by $2 billion. This explains why California’s deficit has been growing by $2 billion a month, like clockwork. Completely blowing the forecasts on tax revenues also helps. (via fp) -
"The superior availability of risk capital in the United States is widely thought to have contributed..."
2 Jul 2009 | 2:31 am“The superior availability of risk capital in the United States is widely thought to have contributed significantly to the New Economy lead the United States has taken. Unfortunately, financial markets also can and do shift the non-diversifiable risk in the economy to the imprudent, the reckless, and the fraudulent. The misalignment of the private and social costs of risk that causes such perverse risk trading occurs for legal and institutional reasons and because of asymmetric information among the parties trading risk.” - Willem Buiter, in a paper published in 2000 by the Bank of… -
"Based on analysts’ earnings forecasts for 2009, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is on track to pay..."
2 Jul 2009 | 1:24 am“Based on analysts’ earnings forecasts for 2009, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is on track to pay out as much as $20 billion this year, or about $700,000 per employee. That would be nearly double the firm’s $363,000 average last year, and slightly higher than the $661,000 for the average Goldman employee in fiscal 2007, according to analyst estimates reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.” - Big Pay Packages Return to Wall Street - WSJ.com
-
IMF Survey Magazine
-
IMF Approves $1.2 Billion in Debt Relief for Haiti
1 Jul 2009 | 10:35 amThe IMF Executive Board granted Haiti $1.2 billion in debt relief, freeing up millions of dollars a year for the government to spend on health, education, and fighting poverty, the institution announced on June 30. -
Reforms, IMF Support Pull Seychelles Back From the Brink
30 Jun 2009 | 7:39 amLess than a year after experiencing economic crisis and introducing bold economic reforms, Seychelles is seeing the fruits of its efforts. A historic liberalization of its exchange regime and bold fiscal measures, together with tight monetary policy, have stabilized the economy. -
Fully Spend Stimulus Money to Back Crisis Recovery, Says IMF
26 Jun 2009 | 7:20 amWith advanced economies still struggling, the IMF is urging governments to fully implement the spending measures they have announced to combat the global economic crisis and not to relax in supporting an incipient recovery. -
IMF Invites Civil Society Input Into Governance Reform
26 Jun 2009 | 4:17 amThe IMF asks civil society organizations for input into proposals to reform the way the institution is governed. An independently run website will collate the input to IMF staff preparing governance reform papers for the IMF’s Executive Board and the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings. -
IMF Opens Central American Technical Assistance Center
24 Jun 2009 | 4:10 pmThe IMF, building on a successful model for transferring economic skills and best practices, opened a new technical assistance center in Central America on June 24, the seventh set up by the Fund around the world to train central bankers, economic officials, and others.
-
SPG Trend Blog
-
Third Quarter — Still at the Bottom of the “L”
30 Jun 2009 | 8:38 amI continue to be surprised at the over-optimism of the mainstream financial press and government spokespeople on the current economic environment which is leading to increased forecasts of economic recovery beginning as early as this year’s third quarter. Headlines indicating some economic improvement from higher consumer sentiment readings, a guarded optimistic reading on the economy from the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee this past week, a marginal improvement in the rate of economic decline in this year’s first quarter GDP and an impressive growth in the Advance report… -
The President’s Financial System Overhaul: It’s Time
18 Jun 2009 | 10:10 amAfter a year of speculation and discussion, President Obama released his plan for reform and regulation of the nation’s financial system. There were few surprises. With more oversight and control centered in the Federal Reserve and augmented with newly created boards, the plan brings under new regulation and supervision virtually all major sectors and products of the financial services industry. Born out of the cataclysmic financial losses of the current recession, the President’s plan seeks to avoid a repetition of the circumstances and events that led to the recent financial system… -
Europeans are Mad and Turn Right
9 Jun 2009 | 12:58 pmThe recent European Parliament elections held this past weekend confirmed our observations in our blog and website articles, “I am Mad as Hell and I am not Going to Take it Anymore,” March 23, 2009. Voter dissatisfaction with left leaning and socialist governments and their policies handed conservative and right wing nationalist parties a clear majority in the European Parliament and unseated and inflicted major losses on sitting governments in Hungary, Ireland, Great Britain and Spain. This move to the political right is expected to have the following repercussions: 1. A move… -
Unemployment And The Cycle
5 Jun 2009 | 11:54 amToday’s unemployment report for the month of May, showed a stunning decrease in the monthly trend of job losses since the recession intensified in the fourth quarter of last year. The Labor Dept reported non farm payrolls declined by 345,000 in May, the lowest monthly level of job losses since last September, and far below analysts’ expectations of 500,000 lost jobs in May. Combined with the recent downward trend in first time unemployment claims seen in the months of April and May, we believe the current level of monthly losses in the U.S. economy has subsided from… -
Beware Over-Exuberant Reactions to this Week’s Economic News
28 May 2009 | 12:03 pmThis week the Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index for the month of May came in at an impressive 54.9, a surprisingly strong increase over the rise in the index in the month of April. The strong increases in the Conference Board’s and Michigan Consumer Sentiment Surveys in April and May we believe are largely due to the continued strong gains in U.S. stock prices since mid March. Indeed, we mentioned in our Economic Update of May 1, 2009 that the March reading in this index in the mid 30s would likely be the low point for consumer sentiment in the current cycle. The news of the…
-
247 Wall Street
-
Venture Capital Growing Again in Clean Energy and Clean Technology (GE, DGW, BWEN)
3 Jul 2009 | 5:31 amIt seems that venture capital has started to reappear in clean energy and clean technology. A report this week from The Cleantech Group with contributions from Deloitte saw a resumption to growth in venture investing after two quarters of decline. The funding seems focused on electric vehicles and in biofuels, but interestingly enough the investments [...] [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Apple (AAPL) iPhone Bests Palm (PALM) Pre
3 Jul 2009 | 3:41 amPre sales have to keep a very brisk pace for Palm (PALM) to continue its turnaround. Many experts believe that consumers will make a decision to buy the Pre in lieu of the Apple (AAPL) iPhone or RIM (RIMM) Blackberry. New data fromConsumer Reports shows that the Pre may be a tough sell In its [...] [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Give Madoff Some Cellmates
3 Jul 2009 | 3:19 amBy Antoinette Geyelin So, Mr. Bernard Madoff is going to jail for 150 years. Seems like a fairer sentence than the twelve his lawyers asked for. But you know what? I don’t think he should be there alone; I think he should have some company. Quite a lot of company in fact. Who should be there with [...] [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore…
3 Jul 2009 | 3:16 amBy Kathleen Rogers The state of California may soon issue IOUs to its business vendors, students awaiting financial aid payments, and taxpayers expecting refund checks. When I first read this story, I had to check the calendar – was it April 1? No, this April Fool’s joke is exactly three months late. I am reminded of [...] [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
China Chases More Oil Assets (SNP)(RTP)
3 Jul 2009 | 3:14 amChina is scouring the world for oil as its expanding economy needs more crude to fuel its transportation and infrastructure needs. The world’s most populous nation is close to a deal to loan Brazil oil giant Petrobras $10 billion for off-shore drilling. The deal would help China lock up more than 100,000 barrels of crude [...] [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
-
Wallet Pop: Recession
-
Ask the Dolans: Is now the time to start my own business?
3 Jul 2009 | 8:00 amFiled under: Entrepreneurship, The Dolans, Career, Recession, VideoKen and Daria Dolan, America's first family of personal finance, answer your questions every Friday. Click here to ask Ken and Daria your question. With more than 3.6 million jobs lost and unemployment headed toward 10%, more and more people are considering whether or not to leave the rat race and go into business for themselves. The Dolans share some tips and a few warnings that can help you decide whether or not to take the leap. Dear Ken and Daria, I'm thinking about starting my own business but I'm scared -- especially in… -
Helping artists in down times, part I
2 Jul 2009 | 3:00 pmFiled under: Extracurriculars, Food, RecessionIn a recession, art funding becomes an oxymoron. And then we're suddenly grateful for the tattoos of celebrities, like Megan Fox's King Lear reference on her back, to give us our Shakespeare. Two of my favorite new artists I discovered with the help of Campari. No, not the name of New York's latest curator from across the pond, but the 150-year-old red alcoholic aperitif invented in Italy, the stuff of New York Times' Helene Cooper's villa dreams. "We proffer Campari-vodka-grapefruit juice aperitivos..." Cooper writes in her romantic story on how… -
Recession Dressin' with Holly Getty: investment shopping
2 Jul 2009 | 12:00 pmFiled under: Bargains, Saving, Shopping, RecessionOnce again, Walletpop's personal style expert, Holly Getty, tells you to go shopping, wisely: "Are you still shopping at the same stores you did a year ago? Still wearing the same designers? Well, it's time to upgrade. "Stores are dropping prices so quickly, they practically hit your feet. Now is the time to shop the designers and stores you have always wanted to shop. "You see, there are two type of shoppers at this moment in time. One is in fear mode: Purchasing more of what they have in their wardrobes, buying larger quantities, not seeing… -
StyleCaster: A free personal stylist, only nicer
1 Jul 2009 | 6:00 pmFiled under: Entrepreneurship, Extracurriculars, Shopping, Wealth, RecessionWe all have those friends who dress like they should be hung up in the MoMA. I'm certainly not that friend to anybody. But I do have this idea that style empowers you and, as we've shown right here on WalletpopTV, gives you an edge, especially if you're interviewing for jobs. Meet StyleCaster, an inspiring guide to looking your best. Can't afford a personal stylist? Not friends with Rachel Zoe? Then StyleCaster will provide you with the dream cyber closet of ideas and network you with stylists, models, and other… -
Man has boss killed to avoid layoff ... loses job anyway
30 Jun 2009 | 4:30 pmFiled under: Extracurriculars, RecessionI'm glad I didn't think of this when layoffs were in the air at my former company a year ago: A man in Spain was arrested for hiring a contract killer to murder his boss so that he wouldn't be laid off.And he got the job done, too. That's right -- he had his boss whacked so he wouldn't lose his job.The desperate act to avoid being laid off was done by the head of audiovisual services at the Barcelona International Convention Center, according to a Reuters story.The director contracted a Colombian man who shot and killed the director of the convention…
-
Twitter: Nouriel Roubini
-
Nouriel: blogs that green shoots turned into yellow weeds & will eventually turn into brown manure http://bit.ly/FwuuR
2 Jul 2009 | 12:45 pmNouriel: blogs that green shoots turned into yellow weeds & will eventually turn into brown manure http://bit.ly/FwuuR -
Nouriel: Job report suggests that green shoots are yellow weeds turning into brown manure. Jobs & hours & wage losses are pushing down labor income
2 Jul 2009 | 6:40 amNouriel: Job report suggests that green shoots are yellow weeds turning into brown manure. Jobs & hours & wage losses are pushing down labor income -
Nouriel: will speak today at an NYU conference on Bankruptcy and the Financial Crisis http://bit.ly/UgbeK
30 Jun 2009 | 11:40 amNouriel: will speak today at an NYU conference on Bankruptcy and the Financial Crisis http://bit.ly/UgbeK -
Nouriel: is on his way to an Aspen Institute seminar http://bit.ly/1hIyR
26 Jun 2009 | 5:27 pmNouriel: is on his way to an Aspen Institute seminar http://bit.ly/1hIyR -
Nouriel: comments on China's proposal for a global super currency http://bit.ly/ojIQu
26 Jun 2009 | 10:13 amNouriel: comments on China's proposal for a global super currency http://bit.ly/ojIQu
-
Twitter: Jason Welker
-
jasonwelker: Welker's daily links 06/12/2009 /Welker's Wikinomics Blog/
12 Jun 2009 | 9:48 amjasonwelker: Welker's daily links 06/12/2009 /Welker's Wikinomics Blog/ -
jasonwelker: 'Japanese' pair reportedly held with $134 billion in U.S. bonds | The Japan Times Online http://tinyurl.com/mh4gep r
12 Jun 2009 | 3:03 amjasonwelker: 'Japanese' pair reportedly held with $134 billion in U.S. bonds | The Japan Times Online http://tinyurl.com/mh4gep r -
jasonwelker: Educators, register for Global Association of Teachers of Economics and cast your vote for me to become a board member! http://is.gd/Y2Tj
10 Jun 2009 | 2:06 pmjasonwelker: Educators, register for Global Association of Teachers of Economics and cast your vote for me to become a board member! http://is.gd/Y2Tj -
jasonwelker: The almighty bond market: Niall Ferguson's concerns about the US deficit explained /Welker's Wikinomics Blog/ http://tinyurl.com/nx3gvp
10 Jun 2009 | 8:16 amjasonwelker: The almighty bond market: Niall Ferguson's concerns about the US deficit explained /Welker's Wikinomics Blog/ http://tinyurl.com/nx3gvp -
jasonwelker: Welker's daily links 06/09/2009 /Welker's Wikinomics Blog/ - - Next Test - Value of $125,000-a-Year ... http://tinyurl.com/l3t4tc
9 Jun 2009 | 9:38 amjasonwelker: Welker's daily links 06/09/2009 /Welker's Wikinomics Blog/ - - Next Test - Value of $125,000-a-Year ... http://tinyurl.com/l3t4tc
-
Twitter: Geoff Riley
-
tutor2u_econ: 117,386 metres on row pro this week - target for the next week is 120,000 but that includes two days away in the north east
3 Jul 2009 | 3:40 amtutor2u_econ: 117,386 metres on row pro this week - target for the next week is 120,000 but that includes two days away in the north east -
tutor2u_econ: I am in Newcastle Sunday and Monday night - anyone around for an ale?
2 Jul 2009 | 10:30 amtutor2u_econ: I am in Newcastle Sunday and Monday night - anyone around for an ale? -
tutor2u_econ: A day staying cool and working on the new A2 economics study companion, interspersed with sessions on row pro and a coffee or two in town
2 Jul 2009 | 12:18 amtutor2u_econ: A day staying cool and working on the new A2 economics study companion, interspersed with sessions on row pro and a coffee or two in town -
tutor2u_econ: http://bit.ly/ALNLo - our 2009 moodle
1 Jul 2009 | 12:23 amtutor2u_econ: http://bit.ly/ALNLo - our 2009 moodle -
tutor2u_econ: http://bit.ly/xX16y plenty of cheap fares available though!
1 Jul 2009 | 12:22 amtutor2u_econ: http://bit.ly/xX16y plenty of cheap fares available though!
-
The Baseline Scenario
-
How To Buy Friends And Alienate People
3 Jul 2009 | 6:28 amThe banking industry is exceeding all expectations. The biggest players are raking in profits and planning much higher compensation so far this year, on the back of increased market share (wouldn’t you like two of your major competitors to go out of business?). And banks in general are managing to project widely a completely negative attitude towards all attempts to protect consumers. This is a dangerous combination for the industry, yet it is not being handled well. Just look at the current strategy of the American Bankers’ Association. Edward L. Yingling is… -
This Is Their Reform Strategy For Big Banks?
2 Jul 2009 | 2:32 amAnil Kashyap is one of our leading researchers on banks. His book with Takeo Hoshi on the evolution of the Japanese corporate finance is a must read on the twists and turns that built a great economy and then laid it low. And he has many other papers and relevant recent commentary. Professor Kashyap has a sharp perspective the administration’s financial sector reform thinking, in part because he has long worked alongside key people now at the National Economic Council (the NEC, by the way, has disappointingly little transparency; even Treasury is more open). So we should take him… -
Statistics and Basketball for Beginners
30 Jun 2009 | 6:40 pmI think that the general difficulty that many people have in understanding statistics is an important problem, because it leads people to misinterpret the world around them. General managers of baseball teams overpay for free agents coming off of good years because they underestimate the chances that the recent good year was just the result of variance around a mediocre mean – or at least they did until the Billy Beane era. Retail investors plow money into expensive mutual funds that have beaten the S&P 500 index for a few years in a row because they underestimate the chances that… -
The Two Sides of the Balance Sheet
30 Jun 2009 | 2:30 pmNoam Scheiber at The New Republic has the inside scoop (hat tip Ezra Klein) on why Treasury is letting the Public-Private Investment Program die a quiet death (although at this point the legacy securities component may still go ahead). In short, the argument is that the point of PPIP was to help banks raise capital by cleaning up their balance sheets; since they have been able to raise capital themselves, there is no need for PPIP. According to one person Scheiber spoke to: “If you had asked–I don’t want to speak for the secretary–what’s problem number one? I think… -
Benefits of Size?
29 Jun 2009 | 9:13 pmFelix Salmon points out that Bank of America can now charge customers overdraft fees ten times a day (up from five). (Read the original Washington Post article if you want to be aggravated.) Well, I can do one better. I recently had to track down some past bank records. Local banks? No problem, no fee. At Bank of America, however, they insisted on charging me $5 per page – even though they were breaking a state law forbidding them from charging a fee. (All I’ll say is that they weren’t allowed to charge a fee because of the characteristics of the person I was getting the…
-
Expert-entrepreneur News
-
How to get a Mortgage Loan with Bad Credit
30 Jun 2009 | 11:10 amAre you like the millions of people out there that have been hit extremely hard by the economic downturn? Are you looking for a new home but you have terrible credit because of the unexpecting events of the economy? Well there are ways to get a bad credit mortgage loan, believe it or not! First it starts with rebuilding your credit. You should have at least one credit card that you use for almost all your purchases. Forget using cash, use your credit card for everything. However with this said, make sure you never spend more then you can afford. Keep track of your expenditures and make sure… -
The Future of Video Games = ONLIVE
12 May 2009 | 11:18 amI have to say, I'm not a video gamer by any means. The last system I owned was a Sega Genesis back in the mid 90's. I was pretty awesome at the hockey games. Now as someone who hasn't been playing video games for a long time now, I have come accross a new gaming system that I feel has the chance to really change game play, and the demographics of players. It is a cloud server based system. This means that you don't large consoles. It will allow you to play games on your PC, or Mac, with a simple software plugin, or on your television with a micro console. It's called Onlive, and I feel it is… -
Another Great Depression never happened
26 Mar 2009 | 10:35 amJust a quick little entry. A couple weeks ago I did a blog post claiming that we would NOT have another great depression in the United states. Now it is very obvious that the economy will NOT fall into a great depression. The economy is turning up in several leading indicators. The housing market is picking up, and the stock market is going up almost daily. Will another great depression happen in the future? Sure it is possible, but I truly believe that we learned from the first one. The government is better prepared to fight off a possible depression, and after this major recession they will… -
Quick Way to Get a Promotion at Work
25 Mar 2009 | 10:59 amI know this blog is about being an entrepreneur. However all entrepreneurs need to start somewhere. Everyone wants to be promoted at work. Here is a quick and easy guide to getting that promotion that you want. If you follow these rules, you will be first in line for the promotion. You will find it to be a quick way to get a promotion at work.1 - Be very friendly to ALL your co-workers. Even if you hate their guts, at least try and get along. If you feel an argument brewing just step aside, gather yourself and explain your side of the argument in a calm, cool way. Bosses want employees that… -
How the Toxic Asset Plan Helps Me
23 Mar 2009 | 1:37 pmWell, the new plan is out. The goverment will buy up toxic assets from troubled banks. After doing this they will sell them at discounted prices in an auction format. How will this toxic asset plan help me and you? It's quite simple.The new plan will be put into motion with tax payers dollars, so all Americans will be paying for the solution (However the tax might not be as big as we all think, since these bad assets still have good value). You won't see any immediate effects, but it certainly will help the banks. I know, I know. This isn't what you want to hear. However, the way I see it is…
-
Minyanville
-
S&P Watch: Time for Real Caution
2 Jul 2009 | 2:30 pmEditor's Note: The following was posted in real time on our premium Buzz & Banter (click for a free trial). It's being shared here for the benefit of the Minyanville community. About a month ago I showed a flipped-over chart of the S&P 500 which garnered a lot of response -- most of you could see the possibility of a head-and-shoulders top in that flipped-over pattern (translating to inverse head-and-shoulders bottoming pattern in the real SP-500 chart). I followed that chart with a long note on how support hadn’t been materially violated and -- while it was important to ... -
MV Traffic Report: S&P Could Speed Still Lower
2 Jul 2009 | 2:10 pmLet’s talk jobs: Today the non-farm payroll data and the unemployment rate were released and the results weren’t great. For the month of June non-farm payrolls were down 467 000 compared to estimates of -394k. The unemployment rate actually came in better than expected at 9.5%; the estimates called for 9.6%. Today on the Buzz and Banter Minyanville Professor Tom Fant gave his thoughts on the numbers. “The employment situation continues to deteriorate. I would point out a couple things inside the worse than expected headline number. Net revisions to prior months were… -
Real American Independence Means Freedom from Debt, Spending
2 Jul 2009 | 1:55 pmEditor's Note: James Quinn is a senior director of strategic planning for a major university. James has held high-level financial positions with a retailer homebuilder and a university in his 22-year career. He can be found online at www.theburningplatform.com. The assumptions used in the bank stress tests were stress-free. The stress-test timeframe ended in 2010. William Black former bank regulator and author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One concludes:“There were no real examinations. Banks continue to overstate asset quality. The bankers pressured Congress which extorted… -
Two Ways: Grim Job Numbers Suggest Recession Is Here to Stay
2 Jul 2009 | 12:50 pmUS job losses continued to mount in June giving more weight to the notion that any recovery from this recession will be long and arduous. The Department of Labor said today the nation lost 467 000 jobs last month which was significantly above consensus estimates of a loss of 350 000. Meanwhile the unemployment rate -- already at 25-year highs -- continued to creep higher to 9.5% but that was slightly below estimates of 9.6%. Compounding pressures on the consumer the average work week fell to 33 hours -- a record low according to the Wall Street Journal. In ... -
Six Rules for Pre-Teens and the Internet
2 Jul 2009 | 11:50 amChildren as young as 6 or 7 are now as familiar with the computer and the Internet as they are with their toy cars and dolls. With popular social networking sites such as Webkinz Club Penguin and MinyanLand drawing in ever-younger kids parents are often left scratching their heads as to how to regulate an entertainment medium that just didn’t exist when they were young.Although you may be confident that you've installed parental controls and that your pre-teens can’t stumble across anything too objectionable you may still be looking for a “code of conduct” when it…
-
Howard Lindzon
-
Robert Scoble Interview with me on Stocktwits
1 Jul 2009 | 7:16 amI am happy with the way this interview came out. I am liking the long form web video movement these days, especially as it relates to what we plan for Stocktwits TV. Robert has interviewed pretty much everybody in the social web space and it’s nice to hear he likes the business we are building at Stocktwits. -
Sun Tzu - The Art of Community
27 Jun 2009 | 10:56 amAt Stocktwits , we have pretty much two camps…Soren and Marissa who read my tweets (religiously ) and cringe. After the initial shivers I will get an email with a quote from Sun Tzu - The Art of War and why the tweet was a possible mistake. Phil on the other hand laughs and sends me three more that if ungoverned would get us thrown off Twitter. I am not a Sun Tzu guy. I am a lover, not a fighter . A huge majority of the great businesses since the beginning of time have likely benefitted from Sun Tzu style and tactics. My question though is this…In the day of the Social Web and now… -
Stocktwits Passes 80,000 Followers and Hedge Funds Begin to Embrace Twitter
25 Jun 2009 | 6:13 amIt makes sense that hedge funds and algorithmic traders are finally beginning to embrace Twitter . I am not excited for much of what will be created early, but great datat can be had and great algorithms and programs will be created. I believe Stocktwits goal of becoming ‘The Social Bloomberg’ is ambitious, fun and closer to a reality every day as traders build on top of the technology tools at their fingertips today. We have had the early hedgie and quant adopters eavesdropping mostly, but a few participating on Stocktwits . Since 2006 I have been banging the table about real… -
Time Bankruptcy…The Power of NO
22 Jun 2009 | 11:34 pmI have joked recently about hiring a ‘Time Bankruptcy’ attorney. In this age of Social Media I believe that Time Bankruptcy will become a real problem and if lawyers did not spend all their time billing us endlessly we would already see the infomercials. I have long said that Social Leverage is the NEW Financial Leverage. My mistake is that thinking there was no downside to Social Leverage…that it was infinitely scalable. I stand corrected. I have recently realized that there are indeed boundaries and limits to Social Leverage and the big one is time. I am overcommited and I… -
Twitter Me This…Why Is StockTwits Not on Recommended List?
22 Jun 2009 | 5:12 amWhen Twitter first launched their recommended list of ‘twitterers’, Soren and I felt snubbed because we felt that Stocktwits made Twitter better. We asked Twitter why and we were told that Companies were not included on the list. I was unaware that Zappo’s and Whole Foods were not companies, but we left it alone. Months later, when talk of ‘high noise’, ‘low engagement’, ’spam’ and ‘low retention’ are the buzzwords surrounding Twitter, the Stocktwits community is thriving around all these trouble points and battling the SPAM…
-
Information Arbitrage
-
Why I'm Not Blogging
14 Jun 2009 | 7:44 pmI've been at this since July 2006, doing my thing. Writing when I've felt inspired, irked, righteously indignant, touched, happy and sad. Blogging has become a significant and meaningful part of my life, one where I am able to express myself on my terms, write about issues rattling around in my head, and to connect with people across the world and from different walks of life. Discovering blogging has truly been a gift. It is hard to imagine living without my blog.Then why am I less interested in blogging than I've been in nearly three years? While I'm certainly not the most prolific blogger,… -
The Quants Must be Crazy
4 Jun 2009 | 4:33 amAs a number of historically top-ranked long/short managers have decided get out of the LP game, there is another pocket - a quieter, more stealthy pocket - of the hedge fund universe that is heating up to bubble-like proportions: high frequency statistical arbitrage trading. Where long/short managers were once the kings of the hill, the AUM titans that could move markets with the mere awareness of their interest in a particular security, the secretive, underground, geeky uber-quant crowd is now being feted by top shops looking for talent. Hedge fund strategies rise and fall in favor in a… -
Twitter is our id, Facebook is our Ego
19 May 2009 | 8:00 pmI was speaking with my good friend Howard Lindzon, my partner in several Twitter-related investments, about the differences in the way people communicate on Twitter and Facebook. Howard's sense is that everybody lies on Facebook; that people represent a kind of "false self," so that it is hard to really know what a person is like from their Facebook profile. He feels differently about Twitter, however, holding the belief that people's tweets are a much closer representation of their true self than Facebook. So that someone who is a jerk on Twitter is likely a jerk in real life, and someone… -
Twitter = Discovery
18 May 2009 | 5:14 pmAs you may have read, Stocktwits just closed its Series A round with True Ventures. Tony Conrad, of Sphere and WordPress fame, will be joining Howard, Soren and I on the Board. I am very excited about our new partner, and know that Tony's entrepreneurial IQ and product development expertise will be a huge asset to the Stocktwits team.I have shared my views about Twitter in the past, and have only become more wedded to the ecosystem through my investments in TweetDeck and bit.ly. Given the passage of time and my greater intimacy with the medium, I decided to do a re-read of my "foundation"… -
What Keeps Me Awake At Night: Economy Edition
7 May 2009 | 4:06 pmThe stress tests are done. All is well. Green shoots are popping up all over the place. The worst is behind us. Everything is cool, right? Well...This is how my nightmare goes. The US Government has adopted the following mantra: BUY TIME. Buy time for: the stock market to recover; sentiment to improve; retail demand to pick up; credit markets to open up; bank balance sheets to be rebuilt; banks to lend to both consumers and small businesses; businesses to begin hiring again; homeowners who were once on the edge to be able to pay their mortgages; real estate prices to rise; residential and…
-
Franconomics
-
Real Unemployment at 15% - Insight from FRANCONOMICS.COM
1 Jul 2009 | 9:58 pmExcerpt from the Article: ... So, the Real Unemployment Rate = (13.5 + 5.1) / (13.5 + 140.1 + 5.1) = 18.6 / 158.7 = 11.7% at the end of the first quarter (or end of March, 2009). Now, at the end of May, the official rate jumped to 9.4%. If we use the same rate of increase for the Real Unemployment Rate, we come to 11.7 * 9.4 / 8.7 = 12.65%. So, we know for a fact that unemployment at the end of May was 12.65%...As per estimates, this official figure of 9.4% will go up to 12% by end of 2010, as per many economists, including Roubini. Which means what? The real / actual unemployment rate will… -
June 28 Weekly Economic Roundup - FRANCONOMICS.COM
29 Jun 2009 | 8:36 am1. Moral Hazard of letting Goldman pay back the 10 billion TARP money: Citi and the others will use the excuse to hike up the base pay (to go past the bonus constraints) with impunity, citing concerns that Goldman and other firms not under the scrutiny of the Compensation Czar will lure away their best and brightest (what best and brightest run a business into the ground and need almost 50 billion dollars to keep the business afloat) unless they do so! 2. Why the real unemployment is at least 15%? Because the 9.5% only includes those who are drawing unemployment, it does not include those who… -
Franconomics.com June 21 Weekly Podcast
24 Jun 2009 | 9:53 amThis weekly podcast for the week ending June 21, 2009, explores the downward economic spiral millions of Americans are going through because of increasing foreclosures, joblessness, homelessness, and friends-and-family-lessness. It does so in this episode by delving into the following: 1. Campaign finance (discussed in depth in the last podcast): It is a social evil, so what can you do? Don’t contribute to it, for the politician will take your 25 dollars, but since the banks have contributed more, will favor the banker. Proof? The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, of course. 2. Analysis of… -
Franconomics.com June 14 Weekly Podcast
15 Jun 2009 | 12:53 pmThis weekly podcast for the week ending June 14, 2009, touches upon the following: 1. Goldman returned the $10 billion from TARP, but when will the bank return the $12.9 billion from the AIG handout? The bank escapes the authority of the newly appointed compensation czar, and is on course to pay nice bonus to executives who mis-managed the business...the government is giving up $1.8 billion in interest payments from these banks? So what did we the people gained by helping banks like Goldman? Foreclosed homes making us sleep in our cars? 20% of us digging into our retirement savings to get by? -
June 7 Weekly Franconomics.com Podcast
8 Jun 2009 | 12:53 amThis weekly podcast for the week ending June 7, 2009, touches upon the following: 1. GM Bankruptcy: At $91 billion in assets when going bankrupt, GM was way behind Lehman Brothers, which, while going bankrupt, had assets worth $651 billion! Hummer sold to Chinese machinery maker. GM Michigan jobs decimated 90% in last 30 years. 2. Analysis of the 100 day report from the US Treasury: Taking $27,000 per person and giving back only $65/month? And the rest goes to Bankers' bonus payments etc.? Is giving each American a $27,000 bailout a better option instead, for it will bring up the C in the…
-
The investment blog on Post
-
Indian Infrastructure Tweets for June 30, 2009
30 Jun 2009 | 4:23 amKingfisher Airlines gap itself is $1100 million i believe, Will KF Airlines do a fresh placement? How will the Oil mktg cos get paid? _TYY4 --2 minutes ago from TweetDeck UB raises $250 m through QIP - United Spirits has already raised $250 million thru sale of Treasury shares, _TYY4 --4 minutes ago from TweetDeck The 5.6 km Bandra Worli Sea link is now open in Mumbai. Will the Haji Ali phase start in 2010? Will the Mumbai Metro see fin closure _TYY4 - 9 minutes ago from TweetDeck GMR itself needed only Rs 3000 crores for 2 new projects and say liwquidity position is quite… -
Unitech | Debt Equity of 0.52
29 Jun 2009 | 4:56 amNew Delhi: The net debt of the country’s No. 2 listed realty firm, Unitech Ltd will come down to Rs5,000 crore by the first week of July, following an infusion of Rs2,800 crore into the company last week through a private placement of shares, people familiar with the development said. Better cash flow: Unitech has been raising funds from the beginning of this year to improve cash flow and reduce the company’s huge debt. Madhu Kapparath / MintAt present, the gross debt of Unitech is Rs7,800 crore, they said. After a qualified institutional placement (QIP), the company’s debt-equity ratio… -
Musical wealth from the Beatles
27 Jun 2009 | 10:16 amMichael Jackson, U2 and The Wealth Report - WSJ Blogs zyakaira notes: WSJ blogs also have U2's Larry Mullen speaking against the Irish Bile and resentment against the rich..the US is cautioned not to treat them poorly. In a related story, the death of Michael Jackson has caused speculation about the sale of his rich music collection that's jointly owned with Sony and includes the vintage Beatles collection purchased by him for $47.5 million. This collection along with his own is valued at $1 billion and may go higher given the quality of the artiste's recordings despite the debts that… -
Adani Power 6000MW / IPO August '09
26 Jun 2009 | 7:17 amAdani Power is part of the $4.5 billion Adani Group setting up Thermal Power Plants such as the one at Tiroda and Mundra. They plan to put into place Power Capacity of 6000 MW by 2012 for which they have tied loans worth Rs. 23000 Crores Thus they have a planned issue in the next 6 weeks which would bring in the rest of the equity for the new Power projects. They are currently going live with a Transmission project in ?Tiroda? They seem to be in the right locations in Tiroda and Mundra which has no problems with the pricing or the supply agreements. They are also in contract for the… -
Pension Reform : Investment flexibility added April 2009
26 Jun 2009 | 3:40 amvia Mercer As a sign of increasing confidence in the expansion of private pension systems in India, the Indian Ministry of Finance recently announced an increase in investment flexibility. This will be effective from 1 April 2009 for non-governmental provident funds, superannuation and gratuity funds. In common with the practice in many developing countries, there have always been significant restrictions on how these funds could be invested, with a considerable bias toward local investments and toward government securities. This latest revision to the investment pattern gives a welcome…
