Economics

The U.S. economy may face “subdued” performance for the next two quarters, with output that’s barely positive or barely negative, Gary Stern, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said in an interview Tuesday. Stern The current environment is similar to the early 1990s when “headwinds,” a phrase then Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan used to refer to the lenders’ reluctance to lend, weighed on the economy, he said. “It took some time for that to all dissipate,” Mr. Stern said. “There was a lot of concern about the initial…

Janet Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said in a speech today that the Fed was behind the curve as the credit crunch began to unwind, and reiterated that challenges will continue in the credit markets. She stressed three major risks to the economy: the credit crunch, housing downturn and rising commodity prices. Her remarks to the annual conference of the CFA Institute, held in Vancouver, which equated inflation to risks to growth, was further indication that the Fed is done cutting rates for the time being. The following are excerpts from her speech: Yellen…

University of Chicago Graduate School of Business economist Richard Thaler has spent his career arguing that people are less-than-rational when they make economic decisions. As a leading figure in behaviorist economics, he’s long argued that policymakers need to guide people where they’re prone to fail. Thaler In his new book, “Nudge,” written with University of Chicago Law School professor Cass Sunstein, he looks at how policymakers might go about doing that. He and Mr. Sunstein make an argument for policies that guide people toward making optimal decisions while not depriving them…

Economists and others weigh in on the retail-sales report, which showed an overall 0.2% decline but a 0.5% increase when auto sales were excluded. The resilience of the consumer seen in today’s report is particularly encouraging given that this number largely represents spending that occurred prior to the receipt of the economic stimulus rebates. While it’s conceivable that some spending may have been pulled forward in anticipation of the rebate checks, survey responses and historical experience suggest these outlays occur only after the checks have been received. Given that the Treasury…

The U.S. housing market will likely decline over the next two years before rebounding in 2010, while the outlook for the broader economy has worsened, a survey of economists released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said Tuesday. The forecasters projected on average that home prices, as measured by the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, will decline 12% in 2008 and 0.3% in 2009, according to the survey. The 36 economists who answered the special question included in the Philadelphia Fed’s quarterly survey said the Case-Shiller index will rebound 3.8% in 2010. Most expect…

Moody's issued the weakest warning it could about the two big monolines. Most observers did not expect the bond insurers' last round of fundraising to carry them very far, and that view appears to be playing out on schedule. We may be moving towards a repeat the January-February drama, with the rating agencies saber rattling until the bond guarantors raise enough money to tide them over for another bit.From Bloomberg:MBIA Inc. and Ambac Financial Group Inc. had ``meaningfully'' higher losses on home-equity loans and collateralized debt obligations than anticipated, raising concern about their…

Before readers start throwing brickbats, let me set forth some general views:1. I have never thought the financial supermarket was a good idea and have said so for at least 15 years2. I was opposed to the sale of Salomon to Travelers3. I was opposed to the merger of Citibank and Travelers4. I have been saying for over 15 years that that the idea that bigger is better in banking is a head fake that serves only the top executives (bank CEO pay is correlated with the size of the balance sheet). Just about every study ever done of the banking industry finds, contrary to popular image, that the…

It's one thing when journalists and analysts offer worrisome forecasts about the markets, quite another when someone with good inside knowledge sounds an alarm. Satyajit Das, an expert in derivatives and risk management, best known as the author of Traders, Guns & Money, looks over the financial landscape and does not like what he sees.Reader CR sent me a copy of Das' latest piece on nuclear de-leveraging, which he also posted at Eurointelligence. Das works thought an example of how deleveraging feeds on itself and discusses how it will progress:The first phase of de-leveraging is focused on…

The fulminating over what to do about our miscreant socialized unrepentant and as yet unreconstituted financial services sector continues. Since massive subsidies have been extended in the form of help to the mortgage business and an alphabet soup of Federal Reserve facilities, with nary a demand made of the beneficiaries of this largess, it seems that the authorities have perilous little leverage over their wayward charges.Of course, in reality that isn't so; a determined regulator can, if nothing else, harass a company into submission (the Japanese are masters of this technique) and they…

Scientists probe recent coyote attacks in California PhysOrgThe First Genetically Modified Human Embryo: Advance or Abomination? WiredWhy Did the EPA Fire a Respected Toxicologist? Mark ThomaCar and Driver: Plummeting auto sales teach a lesson in the value of putting a price on carbon Washington PostBernanke Lunched With Dimon, Rubin Before Bear Rescue BloombergMBIA Reports Scary Earnings; NEGATIVE Revenues Ben BittrolffWhy legal barriers are not critical to deterring immigrants Drew Keeling, VoxEUNet Exports, Oil Imports, and Implications for GDP Menzie Chinn, EconbrowserSpacial Price Index…

RFE have created a Google custom economics search engine for the 20,000+ economics websites in their directory. Very useful. Somewhat less ambitious in scope is my econ blogs search engine. Permalink | No comments yet | Bookmark/share Posted in Miscellaneous Also on 26econ: Econ blog ranking | Econ blogs search engine | Resources | Consulting services

So now Google is jumping on the Social Operating System (SOS) bandwagon with Google Friend Connect. One way this will work is sites like mine, for example, will be able to add a widget so that site visitors can “friend” the site itself (like a fanclub), and can also access their own social networking friends in some way (perhaps to recommend the site), without having to go back to the parent Facebook/MySpace/Orkut website. For a website like mine, this should be very useful — I’d love to know who my readers are. A 26econ Facebook group would do basically the same…

From Felix Salmon, upon getting a dull email from Google’s customer support: I guess it’s inevitable that when a company grows to be as big as Google now is, it will revert to this kind of overlawyered corporate-speak. Is that evil? Maybe not, but it’s a step in the wrong direction. I agree. Their customer support is the weakest part of their business, in my experience. Today I got an email telling me that I must accept some new terms and conditions for Adsense. They concluded with this: Unfortunately, we’re not able to further interpret the meaning of the Terms and…

Just as The Economist predicted, social networks are starting to open up their services to outsiders, to provide something like a “social operating system” for the wider web. Competition between social networks is driving this. The leader this time was MySpace, which announced a data availability initiative (couldn’t they come up with a more sexy name?) that allows third-party sites to interact with MySpace data in some ways. Following close behind was Facebook, which has announced a similar initiative. The interesting thing about these initiatives is that they are likely to…

Some more econ blogs newly added to my directory: EconomistMom.com: A place where analytical rigor meets a mother’s intuition. Exuberant Rationality: Political and economic commentary by Jesse Zinn, a grad student at UC Santa Barbara. Digital Audio Insider: A blog by David Harrell about the economics of digital music. As always, please let me know about any new econ blogs that are not in my directory. Permalink | No comments yet | Bookmark/share Posted in Economics blogs Also on 26econ: Econ blog ranking | Econ blogs search engine | Resources | Consulting services

[Update added below: Stefan Karlsson responds to the recent data from the Baltics noting that we are now definitely in a recession (although I am not sure that Estonia contracted in Q1 2008 while Latvia and Lithuania certainly did); as for the recession call ... he may very well be right.]Last Friday Macro Man was looking for pink flamingos or more aptly as he put it:"(...) what's the next pink flamingo, if any? Where are the remaining high conviction, deeply-positioned trades that might get washed out by the hand of fate (and/or the tap on the shoulder from the market risk…

Today's interest rate action was not particularly difficult to call as both the BOE and the ECB moved (Q&A here) in as expected to keep interest rates on hold. Actually, given the BOE's initial response to the credit turmoil á la the Fed with the intention to lower interest rates today's decision has to be seen as somewhat of a u-turn. Obviously, this may turn out to be a wise one (or not) depending on how inflation data pan out in the next couple of months and quarters. Turning to the ECB the decision to keep rates on hold comes in the context of the mother of all dilemmas as the ECB…

[Update added below as I have corrected some small things below]I am sorry to paraphrase, arguably, one of Hollywood's better conceptions; but having left the last Fed meeting and looking towards Thursday's corresponding action in London and Frankfurt I cannot help but feel that the tail just might be wagging the dog this time around. One thing is certain; ever since the credit turmoil began and the Fed started to aggressively slash the nominal interest rate to ward off disaster it was assumed ex ante that the ECB and perhaps other of the global central banks would follow as per function of…

[This note is also posted at Japan Economy Watch and Global Economy Matters] I am finally back and not much different from the proverbial Phoenix so have the scribe at this space emerged from a rather tough patch of exam hardship. And this is none too late it seems as financial markets and economic data streams have served up an interesting set of new information. In this note, we are taking a trip to Japan and the recent slew of economic data for the month of March as well as other relevant information. Last time I did my monthly review of Japan the data had not budged much. This time…

As my regular readers will know a part of my analysis on Eastern Europe and the Baltics has been to look at the Eastern European edifice through the lens of Lithuania. Last time I did that I showed an update in terms of the labour market as well as I did a more thorough analysis of Lithuania's external position. At this point I probably should move in with a lot of updated graphs on the labour market and economic activity. However, I won't since we have not gotten a lot of new data and what we have got confirms what we already knows. Inflation continued its upward increase in the first months…

That would not have been an entirely fair characterization of Senator Dodd's housing bill, but neither is it entirely fair to describe the bill as an effort to "rescue homeowners at risk of foreclosure," as the Post does today. The bill would allow banks to substantially reduce their losses on houses facing foreclosure. The banks would be able to decide which loans it puts up for refinancing. Presumably it would only put in loans on which it anticipated large losses. The appraisal mechanism in the bill is also likely to have many of the new loans guaranteed at bubble-inflated prices, thereby…

The NYT took a strong position on its editorial page today demanding that President Bush join its effort to keep house prices unaffordable for tens of millions of families. That's right, the NYT wants housing to be unaffordable. They didn't use this term, but they complained that house prices were falling and they wanted President Bush to sign legislation to keep house prices high. While efforts aimed at keeping the housing bubble from deflating might be beneficial to those looking to sell their homes in the next year or two, they are incredibly bad public policy. A house price support…

The Washington Post has an extraordinarily cavalier attitude toward commitments to workers. Today it has an article in which it reports on the status of public pension funds. At one point it quotes a researcher at the Pew Center on the States as saying that defaulting on the pension funds would make public officials feel "like you are breaking a contractual promise." Defaulting on pension obligations to workers certainly should make public officials feel like they are breaking contractual obligations, because that is exactly what they would be doing. These workers worked for their pay and…

Over the last six years, the United States has been by far the largest beneficiary of foreign aid in the history of the world. Foreigners have been willing to put more than $3 trillion in dollar denominated assets, the vast majority of which provided negative returns (i.e. they lost money) to their foreign holders. There are reasons why foreigners do put money in the United States, even at a loss, the most obvious of which is that foreign central banks (e.g. China and Japan) want to keep the dollar high against their currency in order to preserve their export markets. For these foreign…

It is remarkable how often reporters/columnists feel the need to assert that political disputes are about ideological issues. Why do they feel the need to make assertions for which there is generally no evidence? Politicians get elected by getting the support of individuals and groups with power. They don't get elected by being political philosophers. Contrary to what Gretchen Morgenson (ordinarily a very good reporter) tells NYT readers, the battle over the Frank-Dodd bailout plans is not about ideology. The bills are crafted in ways that make them very friendly to banks. The banks get to…

Kathy G. tells us that we need to be reading Ta-Nehisi Coates. Kathy G. is right.

Ta-Nehisi Coates reads the New Republic so we don't have to risk catching a loathesome disease, and finds a gem: The Great Jon Chait On Hillary's Conservative Populism. One cavil.. Jon Chait says that the fact that Bill and Hillary Clinton "obviously [do] not believe... [their] social conservative rhetoric" is a defense of their actions. I do not understand in what way this is supposed to be a defense. First, it may not be true: the easiest people for you to con are those whom you wink at and who then think that they are in on the con. Second and more important, this is, as Greg Mankiw puts…

Tom Slee writes: Whimsley: Linux Grows Up and Gets a Job: One of the highlights: "over 70% of all kernel development is demonstrably done by developers who are being paid for their work". 14% is contributed by developers who are known to be unpaid and independent, and 13% by people who may or may not be paid (unknown), so the amount done by paid workers may be as high as 85%. The Linux kernel, then, is largely the product of professionals, not volunteers. So Linux has become an economic joint venture of a set of companies... participating for a diverse set of commercial reasons. Some want to…

This is evil. Thoroughly evil. I have no idea which Google tool is doing this, so they are all going into the trash right now: 403 Forbidden: Google: Error: We're sorry... ... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now. We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and…

Joe Leahy writes: FT.com / Asia-Pacific / India - Riches rise from Mumbai slum clearance: [T]his week, after years of navigating red tape, the 202-room Four Seasons Mumbai became the first luxury hotel of its size to launch in the city’s south in about 20 years.... “In hindsight, the choice of this location seems quite straightforward but at that time this wasn’t an obvious site for a hotel,” Adarsh Jatia, a director of the family company, Magus Estates and Hotels, says. Guests arriving at night at the Canadian chain’s first hotel in India will see slum-dwellers…

When asked this morning by ABC News' George Stephanopoulos if she could name a single economist who backs her call for a gas tax holiday this summer, HRC said "I'm not going to put my lot in with economists.” I know several of the economists who have been advising Senator Clinton, so I phoned them right after I heard this. I reached two of them. One hadn’t heard her remark and said he couldn’t believe she’d say it. The other had heard it and shrugged it off as “politics as usual.”That’s the problem: Politics as usual. The gas tax holiday is small potatoes relative to everything…

John McCain has just issued a new health-care bulletin about his health-care plan. In response to criticisms from the likes of Elizabeth Edwards, who notes his plan wouldn’t cover people with pre-existing conditions like her and, indeed, like McCain himself, McCain has amended his plan: States would create “high-risk” pools for people with risky pre-existing conditions. Wha? Lots of states already have high-risk pools. Thirty states require insurance companies operating there to cover people with pre-existing conditions. Problem is, the premiums they charge for such policies are often…

If the credit and housing crises weren't enough, now oil prices are breaking through the stratosphere. What to do? The President criticized Democrats in Congress today for barring oil drilling on the Alaskan tundra. If he thinks that will bring down oil prices, he's even farther out of his mind than I feared. Even if such drilling were environmentally safe (and it's not -- remember BP?) it would amount to a miniscule addition to global oil supples. So what else can we do? McCain and HRC are proposing a tax holiday on gas - so this summer you wouldn't pay the 18 cents a gallon that would…

The best thing to have occurred during the Bush administration is something that did not happen. We did not privatize Social Security.Had we done so, boomers facing retirement over the next few years would be even worse off than they are today. Now they’re struggling with pension plans worth less than they counted on, and home values that are tanking. At least they can rely on a monthly Social Security check.But had we privatized, they’d be totally reliant on the stock market. And look what’s happened to the market: Compared to stock values ten years ago, the S&P 500 has risen a little…

The formal act of endorsing a candidate is generally (and properly)limited to editorial pages and elected officials whose constituents might be influenced by their choice. The rest of us shouldn't assume anyone cares. My avoidance of offering a formal endorsement until now has also been affected by the pull of old friendships and my reluctance as a teacher and commentator to be openly partisan. But my conscience won't let me be silent any longer.I believe that Barack Obama should be elected President of the United States.Although Hillary Clinton has offered solid and sensible policy…

From Bloomberg: MBIA, Ambac Losses Elevate Aaa Concern, Moody's Says MBIA Inc. and Ambac Financial Group Inc. had ``meaningfully'' higher losses on home-equity loans and collateralized debt obligations than anticipated, raising concern about their Aaa status, Moody's Investors Service said. The first-quarter losses reported by the companies in the past two weeks elevate ``existing concerns about capitalization levels relative to the Aaa benchmark,'' Moody's, unit of Moody's Corp., said in a statement today. Moody's also issued a report today on second liens: U.S. Subprime Second Lien RMBS…

Here is a graph that is clogging up all those internet tubes: Click on graph for larger image. This graph, from the St. Louis Federal Reserve, shows the non-borrowed reserves of financial institutions. Looks like some serious cliff diving, but with a little research, we discover this graph is misleading.The explanation is pretty simple. The Federal Reserve decided to classify the TAF and the primary dealer credit facility as borrowed reserves (see this table). If we back out these collateralized borrowings, you get the total reserves, and that has been very steady. False alarm.A more…

Update: here is an article from Dow Jones: Toll Bros. CEO: Customer Traffic 'Worst We've Ever Seen' Click on graph for larger image.A few headlines from Toll Conference call. So much for the 2008 Spring selling season. Well, there is always next year!

From San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen: Credit, Housing, Commodities, and the Economy. (here is a PDF with graphs) On housing: Now let me turn to the second of the three main factors behind the current economic weakness—namely, the housing cycle. I have mentioned that earlier in this decade when financial markets were “awash in liquidity,” bubble-like conditions emerged in many areas of the economy, including housing. During this period, housing construction was very strong and housing prices soared. In fact, the ratio of house prices to rents—a kind of price-dividend ratio for…

Here is an overview of non-residential investment and commercial real estate (CRE) from our most recent newsletter.Recently many companies have announced plans to cut capital spending in 2008. This probably means non-residential fixed investments will decline in 2008, as compared to 2007.This decline in investment is an important indicator for the economy, since changes in fixed investment correlate very well with GDP. The first graph shows the change in real GDP and Private Fixed Investment over the preceding four quarters through Q1 2008. Click on graph for larger image.The red line is the…

The skewering of the American consumer (JULS) continues unabated. Now comes even more evidence from the AARP that the Great “unreported” Inflation (GRIN) is rapidly emptying out pocketbooks like a thief in the night. There appears to be several important manifestations of this, besides the glaring lack of a real interest rate on savings. [...]

Retail sales data from April is checking in shockingly poor at minus 0.2% on core non gasoline sales. Given the very high levels of Mad Max inflation in the economy saying many Americans are being reduced to subsistence spending levels may not be too much of a stretch. The primary difference between JULS [...]

New podcast with Lee Adler and Russ Winter. Fannie financial structure discussed at 4:00. New Fannie Ponzi programs discussed at 5:00-7:00. FNM has announced that they will give a $15,000 loan to borrowers with negative equity so that they can pay down some of their principal balance and therefore refinance into a new mortgage. First of all, this [...]

Even as the talking heads and goon squads blow it out about the worst being over, lots of things seem to be for sale right now. “Recapitalizing” hyper leveraged firms seems to be the order of the day. The deals are coming fast and furious and the terms offered, to say the least, are [...]

Any intelligent observer who understands the fundamental concepts and realities of a Ponzi finance based economy knows that borrowers will move from one worm hole to another until credit is exhausted and withdrawn. Meanwhile the same cast of characters who never saw the mortgage rout develop, fail to see a new disaster coming. The last [...]

While at a conference in Germany over the weekend, I was initially quite chuffed by the greeting on my hotel-room TV: But I quickly learned I am quite unable to compete on this front: Somewhat more substantively, the conference, on norms and values, was attended by a bunch of interesting philosophers and political science types of a generally soft rat-choice disposition. As it happens, this week Aaron Swartz is writing about Jon Elster’s recent book, Explaining Social Behavior: More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. Aaron likes the book a lot. I haven’t read it, but now…

No-one will be surprised to know that I admire Richard Rothstein, especially given how often I seem to parrot his arguments myself. Some readers may be more surprised that I also admire Frederick Hess (of the AEI no less); in fact one of my minor betes noir is the frequency with which NPR, when it wants a right winger to comment on an education policy issue, goes to Heritage or Cato, rather than to the AEI who have someone on staff who is a genuine expert, and smart with it. (If you want to understand why I like him, read Common Sense School Reform, which is typical of his work: lots of…

I was pretty much determined to let the question of Ralph Miliband and Pol Pot lie. Blog spats are generally pretty unpleasant and tend to degenerate into a mush of claim, counterclaim and obfuscation. But along comes Brad DeLong , of whom I’ve generally had a good opinion in the past. Unfortunately Brad lets his rage and disgust overcome his critical faculties whenever certain key figures come into view (Paul Sweezy, Gunther Grass and Noam Chomsky, to name but three). Brad writes: It seems Kamm complained about the late Ralph Miliband’s support for Pol Pot. Brad is then kind…

Tim Lambert and I have a piece in the online edition of Prospect, defending Rachel Carson against the tobacco/DDT lobby. It was cut down for publication from a much longer article, which I’ve appended over the fold. The article shows how the legend that Carson caused the banning of DDT, just as it was about to wipe out malaria, was invented and popularised by tobacco lobbyists, most notably Steven Milloy, who wanted to mount a flank attack on tobacco’s archenemy, the World Health Organization. CarsonDDT0805.pdf

When I was 5, we moved from liberal Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin to rural Cashel, Co. Tipperary, and from a free and easy Montessori School to the local convent/Christian Brothers. I’d been reading on my own for a couple of years already (mostly because I was jealous that Henry already could) and I’m not sure I’d really ever heard of the alphabet. The first week in Senior Infants at my new school, we started memorising and chanting our ABCs. I was horrified. I vividly remember counting up the remaining years till I would be finished with school, and it was 14, almost three…

Deals: Sprinting into the Future? In our M&A Roundup for the week ended May 11, as "near deals" percolate, the two top transactions may foreshadow a bigger move involving Nextel. [CFO.com] 2 Indicted in UBS Tax Fraud Case [NYT] Walk of Shame [1-2]

“I think that the use of the word loss in this case is pejorative and actually not at all accurate,” sniffed [Fortress CEO Wes] Edens to Rashad Fonti, analyst from Citigroup, when the matter of FIG’s public portfolio holdings falling from $7.18 billion to $765 million was brought up in passing. Fortress CEO to analysts: We don’t call them “losses” [Reuters]

So whatever happened to Lindsay Campbell? We hadn’t seen her since she left WallStrip, so we were worried when we heard that she’d recently been arrested. It turns out that Campbell brought her new show for CBS’s digital branch, MobLogic, to last week’s protests of the acquittal of the policemen who shot and killed Sean Bell. As the police tried to clear out the traffic-blocking protestors, Campbell opted to be arrested along with the protesters. Supposedly Campbell’s decision to become one of the protesters rather than just report on them is raising a big discussion about rules of…

The $13.25 billion acquisition of Electronic Data Systems by Hewlett-Packard—the ninth largest tech deal ever, according to DealLogic—has moved the M&A league table standings, DealJournal Heidi Moore reports. Before the deal was announced, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley led this year’s ranking from advising technology companies on mergers. But neither bank has a role in the H-P deal, pushing them down in the rankings “Goldman ranked first with $14 billion of announced deals to its credit this year, and Morgan Stanley ranked second with $11 billion according to investment-banking…

Less than a week after Steve Schwarzman’s Nagasaki joke bombed in Boca (of his failure to get the loan money to buy mortgage company PHH, Crab Hands said, “Trying to buy a mortgage bank in the midst of the subprime crisis was the equivalent of being a noodle salesman in Nagasaki when the atomic bomb went off. Not a lot of noodles left, or even a person, and that’s what happened to us on this deal.”), Blackstone has announced it would like to get in on some deal opportunities in Asia. It plans to do so with the launch of Blackstone Altius Advisors, an event-driven strategy based in…

The March trade release was taken as good news. Here's some reasons to wonder a bit more about how good the news was. Figure 1: Current account balance (blue), net exports (red), and net exports ex-oil (green), as a ratio of GDP. NBER defined recessions shaded gray. Source: BEA GDP release of 30 April 2008, and NBER. Commenting on Figure 1 which was included in this post, reader GK remarks: I actually consider the first chart to be positive. Look at much the trade deficit ex-oil has improved. Almost all of our CA deficit is due to two things - oil and China. Of this: 1) Once China's currency…

If the U.S. had decided to go back on the gold standard in 2006, where would we be today? That's a question my friend Randy Parker recently asked me. Here's how we both would answer. Many things might have been different had the U.S. decided to promise to exchange dollars for gold at the 2006 price of $600 per ounce of gold. But let's start with some of the things that wouldn't have changed. I contend that we'd be no less worried today about geopolitical events in places like Nigeria, Iraq and Iran. The phenomenal growth of the Asian economies would presumably have continued. The bad mortgage…

From WSJ, Henry Pulizzi and John D. McKinnon write: "The data are pretty clear that we are not in a recession," Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Edward Lazear told a meeting of editors and reporters from the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. "I would be very surprised if the NBER, looking back at this period, would date this as a recession," Mr. Lazear said. There are even indications that revised first-quarter estimates would be slightly stronger than 0.6%. "The optimists seem to have been closer to right on that than the pessimists," he said. Mr. Lazear's remarks follow…

Two years ago, as part of a multi-year project, Charles Engel and I organized a conference on current account sustainability in major advanced economies. Lask week, we convened a follow-up conference aimed at updating our knowledge on this subject. Below is the latest read on the U.S. current account to GDP. Figure 1: Current account (blue), net exports (red) and net exports ex. oil (green) to GDP ratios. Source: BEA GDP advance release of 30 April 2008. The agenda for this year's conference is here. Economists from the Federal Reserve System, the European Central Bank, the IMF, and…

The trend is clear: demand is down and complaints are up. U.S. sales of cars manufactured in North America actually rose 1.3% in April 2008 compared with the same month the previous year. Data source: Wardsauto.com But sales of domestic light trucks, which includes the once-almighty SUV category, fell 20.6% in April, even more dramatic than the 18.3% drop between March 2007 and March 2008. Combined sales of domestic and imported cars now outnumber light trucks by a significant margin, the first time that's happened since I've been collecting these numbers in 2003. Data source: Wardsauto.com…

(May 13, 2008 03:45 PM, by Arnold Kling) He speaks on this video. He is a very powerful speaker. One theme of the talk is the importance of...

(May 13, 2008 02:07 PM, by Bryan Caplan) Tonight I'm headed to Europe for the first time since 2001. Unlike Tyler Cowen, I can't provide lists of the...

(May 13, 2008 01:34 PM, by Bryan Caplan) I just finished re-watching The Bridge on the River Kwai. If you've never seen it, it's all about Colonel Nicholson...

(May 13, 2008 01:15 PM, by Arnold Kling) My model of the oil market does not predict a relationship between speculation and inventories. Paul Krugman must have a...

(May 13, 2008 10:35 AM, by Bryan Caplan) Krugman says that since we're not building up inventories, the high price of oil isn't a bubble:The only way speculation...

In a post last year, I argued that one reason economists have not successfully forecast recessions is that recession forecasts, or near-recession forecasts, prompt policymakers (usually the Fed) to act so as to prevent a recession. Only when the recession is unexpected (i.e. not forecast) will policymakers fail to act.Spencer, an occasional blogger at Angry Bear and a frequent commenter on many different economics-oriented blogs, suggested (in a comment somewhere; I don’t remember where or when) another mechanism that operates through inventories. When manufacturers expect a recession, they…

I started this post last Monday and then got distracted. Looking at it now, I think the fragment is worth preserving. I’ve spent the past week being pissed off at all the people who were pissed off about the so-called “bailout” of Bear Stearns. In the light of this morning’s [Monday the 24th] news, I’m starting to half agree with them.Earlier, I was going to write a post about what a lucky accident it was that the current Fed Chairman is also one of the world’s foremost experts on the problems of the early 1930’s. Now I’m beginning to wonder if it would have been better to…

This business with Eliot Spitzer is bringing up issues in labor economics for me. In particular, how should we refer to Ms. Dupré’s occupation? Some people insist that she was a “sex worker.”I have a number of problems with this terminology. For one thing, is there any other occupation where the title includes “worker” and the hourly billing rate can be in the quadruple digits? I mean, there are a few cinematic production workers who make that kind of pay – but they’re known invariably by other titles (actors, directors, etc.) – and a few sports workers – but they’re…

In Paul Krugman’s latest column (hat tip: Mark Thoma), he compares the current financial crisis to the bank runs of 1930 and 1931: The financial crisis currently under way is basically an updated version of the wave of bank runs that swept the nation three generations ago. People aren’t pulling cash out of banks to put it in their mattresses — but they’re doing the modern equivalent, pulling their money out of the shadow banking system and putting into Treasury bills. And the result, now as then, is a vicious circle of financial contraction. That sounds like a pretty good description…

Some people (Yves Smith and Tim Duy, to name two, but I’m sure there are many others that I haven’t gotten around to reading yet) are worried that concern about capital flight is going to have to be a constraint on the Fed’s ability to deal with this crisis. I disagree. I don’t think the Fed will or should be concerned about capital flight. In fact, I think capital flight is part of the solution, not part of the problem.In general, capital flight is a problem if you care about quantities that are not denominated in your own currency. If all the quantities you care about are (or can…

Steve Waldman responds: Capabilities, constraints, and confidence, by Steve Waldman: Mark Thoma offers a very thoughtful rejoinder to my post on whether the Fed should be given authority to pay interest on deposits. Mark's comments range from specific, technical points to broad questions about governance. What follows is a quick response to some of the issues he raises. Do read his piece, The Fed Already Has a Blank Check. My bottom line remains the same. Although the central bank does have the capability to unilaterally expand its balance sheet, it is subject to a variety of constraints that…

One of the editors at Scientific American brought this to my attention, and he is hoping to receive feedback. This is part of their "Edit This" series. The idea is that they post a draft of an article they plan to print in a future edition of the magazine, then incorporate feedback into the the print version: Tell us your reactions to the arguments made in this piece. Your feedback will be incorporated into a version of this article that will appear in a future print issue of Scientific American. The article itself, "which is sure to raise the hackles of some members of the…

Hal Varian explains how Google uses auctions to set ad prices: How auctions set ad prices, by Hal Varian, Google: All of the major search engines use auctions to price ads. The reason is simple: there are millions of keywords that need to be priced and it would be impossible to set all those prices by hand. Using an auction removes the burden of having to do this: the prices are determined by the auction participants. These auctions run every time a user enters a query, so they always reflect the current values that advertisers place on keywords. The outcome of the ad auction is efficient in…

Here's what I wish we would have done. Loaded up the bombers until they couldn't carry any more, have a second wave ready, a third, and a put a continuous rotation in place ready to keep it up until the job is done. Then, get them in the air along with escorts that say "just try and stop us" and just bombed the hell out of Burma with food, clothes, and medicine until the job is done. Blast our way in if necessary, and drop crate after crate full of supplies, one drop after another, and keep it up until the mission is complete. Permission to give aid? We don't need no stinking…

Chris Anderson talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his next book project based on the idea that many delightful things in the world are increasingly free--internet-based email with infinite storage, on-line encyclopedias and even podcasts, to name just a few. Why is this trend happening? Is it restricted to the internet? Is there really any such thing as a free lunch? Is free a penny cheaper than a penny or a lot cheaper than that? The conversation also covers whether economics has anything to say about free. Play Time: 1:11:44 How do I listen to a podcast? Download Size: 32.9 MB…

John Nye of George Mason University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his book, War, Wine, and Taxes. The conversation covers the history of Britain and France's trade policy, why the British drink beer and why Ricardo's example of Britain trading wool for Portuguese wine is bizarre. Nye turns the traditional story on its head--he argues that France was more of a free trader than Britain and that the repeal of the Corn Laws was not the dividing line between Britain's protectionist past and free trade future. At the end of the discussion, Nye emphasizes the importance of domestic…

William Bernstein talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the history of trade. Drawing on the insights from his recent book, A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World, Bernstein talks about the magic of spices, how trade in sugar explain why Jews ended up in Manhattan, the real political economy of the Boston Tea Party and the demise of the Corn Laws in England. The discussion closes with the political economy of trade today and the interaction between trade and income inequality. Play Time: 1:10:26 How do I listen to a podcast? Download Size: 32.3 MB Right-click or Option-click,…

EconTalk host Russ Roberts talks about the claim that for capitalism to succeed there have to be people at the bottom to do the unpleasant tasks and that the rich thrive because of the suffering of those at the bottom. He critiques the idea that capitalism is a zero sum game where to get ahead, someone has to fall back. He also looks at the evolution of the least pleasant jobs over time and how technology interacts with rising productivity to make the least pleasant jobs more pleasant. Play Time: 1:03:39 How do I listen to a podcast? Download Size: 29.2 MB Right-click or Option-click, and…

Diane Coyle talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the ideas in her new book, The Soulful Science: What Economists Really Do and Why it Matters. The discussions starts with the issue of growth--measurement issues and what economists have learned and have yet to learn about why some nations grow faster than others and some don't grow at all. Subsequent topics include happiness research, the politics and economics of inequality, the role of math in economics, and policy areas where economics has made the greatest contribution. Play Time: 1:04:15 How do I listen to a podcast? Download Size:…

Why admissions interviews should be banned | Science Blog What Grand Theft Auto IV gets right about gangland and illegal economies. - By Sudhir Venkatesh - Slate Magazine Dani Rodrik’s weblog: More on the Nordic model

Due to my much more successful older sister’s graduation from Medical School and the dilapidated state of my laptop which prevents it from travel, I will not be posting this weekend. Hopefully, I will jot down good ideas in the mean time.

That’s what it means to say something fails the Turing test: they are not identifiable as human, though usually in the context of computers and artificial intelligence: What Does John Yoo Believe? A correspondent sends me to a 2000 article by Yoo, “The Imperial President Abroad”, an article that opens: Aside from getting himself impeached, President Clinton’s most signal impact on the Constitution, and the rule of law it embraces, will have been in the area of foreign affairs. As his domestic agenda met with frustration in a Republican Congress, President Clinton…

The Perfect Substitute: Did Wages Reflect Growth in Productivity? Adam Smith Lives!: Rawls on Robbins Social Science Statistics Blog: What’s New in Econometrics Dani Rodrik’s weblog: If the Danes can do it, why can’t others? (tags: economics Europe Trade Politics economy Inequality Welfare unions)

Why you should hate economists From the WSJ: Almost half of the economists in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey decided against answering a question on which presidential candidate offers the most responsible fiscal policies. However, Sen. John McCain was the clear favorite of those who answered the question. McCain offers the most responsible fiscal policies? Notice that this wasn’t about who you think will be most economically sound in general, or who you think would be better at fiscal management in practice — although even there, nothing in the Republican party’s…

And you thought food prices were high now? The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned in March that Iran had detected a new highly pathogenic strain of wheat stem rust called Ug99. The fungal disease could spread to other wheat producing states in the Near East and western Asia that provide one-quarter of the world’s wheat. *I know UB40 isn't a cover band.  But their most popular song--at least in the U.S., and really, where else does music matter?**--was a cover of Neil Diamond's Red, Red Wine.  "Red, Red Wine you make me fell so fine, you keep me…

From the Detroit Free Press:The Winston-Salem Journal reports that Appalachian State, which pulled a shocking 34-32 upset at then-No. 5 Michigan last season, is getting calls from Big Ten schools looking for an edge over the Wolverines. Coach Jerry Moore, the genius behind Appalachian State's three straight national championships has been receiving numerous phone calls. The favorite topic: ASU's spread offense, which is based on Urban Meyer's Utah model but involves nuances that Moore's staff learned while visiting West Virginia as guests of Coach Rich Rodriguez.   "Since…

From the inbox (links added):Dear Economist: Are you concerned about the impact efforts to cap U.S. carbon emissions may have on the economy?  For the past year, we have worked with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and other interested groups to ensure that legislation making its way through Congress is structured correctly. A critical aspect of a carbon cap and trade program will be how the carbon credits are allocated -- will they be given free to emitting industries or will they be sold at auction?  The attached statement makes the case for auctions.  Please review it…

From the NYTimes:The Nissan Motor Company plans to sell an electric car in the United States and Japan by 2010, raising the stakes in the race to develop environmentally friendly vehicles. ... The zero emissions refers to those from the car’s tailpipe and not those from the production of electricity used to power the car. ... Mr. Ghosn [Nissan’s chief executive], ..., said the Israeli government would encourage sales of electric cars by sharply cutting taxes to levels below those on gasoline-powered vehicles. “We would never have done this if the Israeli government was not encouraging…

From the NYTimes: Senator John McCain sought to distance himself from President Bush on Monday as he called for a mandatory limit on greenhouse gas emissions in the United States to combat climate change. ... The two Democrats seeking their party’s presidential nomination, Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, criticized the McCain plan as too timid, because their plans would reduce emissions more quickly. ... In his speech, Mr. McCain advocated cutting emissions 60 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050; Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama propose cutting…

Comment letters can often be difficult to get a handle on. Some people, like my friends at Disclosure Insight, (formerly SEC Insight) put a lot of credence in them. Others, say they’re interesting, but not particularly informative. I was thinking about this because late Friday, Las Vegas Sands (LVS) filed this 10Q late Friday which noted that it had recently received a comment letter from the SEC. But other than noting that it was for the 2007 10K, there simply weren’t enough details to make a call. Part of the problem is that the rules regarding comment letters are a bit blurry.

One of the last filings to come over the wire on Friday was this proxy filed by Pier One (PIR), which according to the SEC, was filed at 5:22. As footnoted regulars know, anything filed late on a Friday almost certainly has something in it worth the time to at least skim and Pier One’s didn’t disappoint. Although the economy is sputtering and many retailers are struggling, Pier One directors saw their personal wealth rise dramatically last year. Instead of the $33K annual retainer plus additional fees for various meetings that Pier One directors used to receive, they’re now…

On Wednesday, the New York Times announced that it didn’t get enough volunteers who were willing to leave the paper voluntarily and that as a result, there would be “relatively small numbers of layoffs”, prompting the Writer’s Newspaper Guild to file a grievance. Later that day, the New York Times Co. (NYT) filed this 10Q which provided some interesting new details on how much all of this downsizing is costing the company. (Full disclosure: I periodically write for the Times as a freelance journalist.) In Footnote #8, which is a more detailed discussion of information…

Last week, on May Day no less, investors in Furniture Brands International (FBN), the furniture company whose brands include Thomasville and Broyhill, appear to have elected three directors proposed by activist investors, Sun Capital, which owns about 9.5% of FBN’s shares. Sun offered to buy the company, whose stock has declined sharply since 2002, back in February, but the company turned them down. But judging by this 8K filed by FBN late yesterday, the company has a few revolutionary thoughts of its own. As yesterday’s filing notes, on May 1, the company’s board, which…

Last week, I was in Copenhagen and it was hard to miss the banners for Bodies The Exhibition attached to light posts around the city, especially near Tivoli, a major tourist attraction. I didn’t go to the exhibit — there’s so many other more interesting things to do in Copenhagen than look at dead bodies, no matter how they’re sliced and diced. Even the Little Mermaid, which is very little, is more interesting. But according to the fourth quarter and year-end earnings that Premier Exhibitions (PRXI), which is putting on the Bodies exhibit, reported late yesterday, lots…

We've had a lot of conversations on this blog about charitable contributions. For instance: where people like to give, and why; how a young philanthropist should disburse $70 million; whether to give to a street beggar, a hot dog vendor, or neither. So let's start one more conversation on the subject. There have been a pair [...]

The Society of Labor Economists, a professional organization, gives awards to worthy scholars. One is for lifetime achievement, the other to a scholar who finished his/her education within the past 12 years. The American Economic Association does the same thing. Because most scholars -- in economics and most sciences -- do their best work [...]

I blogged last July about the creative ideas Preston McAfee was bringing to the journal he edits called Economic Inquiry. One of his innovations was a "no revisions" option whereby an author could submit a paper to the journal under the provision that the journal publishes "as is" or not at all. If you are not [...]

Several years ago I watched a particularly memorable “Law Revue” skit night at Yale. One of the skits had a group of students sitting at desks, facing the audience, listening to a professor drone on. All of the students were looking at laptops except for one, who had a deck of cards and was [...]

Can texting make people more health-conscious? (Earlier) Are men really that visual? For those who are serious about their weather.(HT: Eric Floehr)(Earlier) The changing face of the "business expert."

Harvard University Harvard University a Hedge Fund?There was a recent article about Harvard University's massive endowment fund and how, in at least one person's point of view this simply looks like a large tax-free hedge fund. This is a hot issue right now since the WSJ recent reported that, "Massachusetts legislators, demonstrating a growing resentment against the wealth of elite universities in tight economic times, are studying a plan to levy a 2.5% annual tax on the portion of college endowments that exceed $1 billion. The effort takes aim at one of the primary economic engines of the…

Short SellingShort Selling & Hedge FundsLast week I got a Hedge Fund Group related email from a short selling hedge fund research provider, Alternative Research Services. Rob MacArthur is the head of this short selling focused research firm. I have exchanged several emails with Rob regarding the types of hedge fund managers he provides his research to and found realized I had written much about short selling hedge fund strategies or trends here in my blog.The first hedge fund created was labeled so because each long position was hedged with a matched with a short. Today in the hedge fund…

Hedge Fund InvestingHedge Fund Investing SurveyA recent survey completed by Deutsch Bank AG polled over 1,000 institutional money managers and rish investors around the globe who control close to $1 trillion in hedge fund allocations. Each respondent was able to select multiple choices and as usual investment performance remained the most important factor in making an investment. One interesting point that came out of this year's survey was that Risk Management has taken precedence over manage pedigree."Over the past eight months, the jump in volatility and the large market moves revealed…

Policy EffectPolicy Effect DefinitionThe policy effect is the measure of the returns between the portfolio which sticks to a set guideline of investing vs. a neutral market position.While policy effect statistic alone isn't extremely exciting, the issue of how long you can accurately measure and rely upon the policy effect is more important. For example, if you are an analyst trying to the "best" global macro hedge funds for your firm's portfolio you will probably be looking at hedge fund managers with long track records. If two of these managers both have great track records but one…

Third Party MarketingThird Party Marketing Due DiligenceHedge funds conducting due diligence on a third party marketing firm should always ask questions about the firm and their employees. Evaluating a potential marketer should be as rigorous as completing a RFP for an institutional consultant. A partnership is being formed, and investing time and money with the wrong professionals can be expensive in terms of real dollars and opportunity costs. Areas to cover while conducting due diligence on a third party marketer include: Past work experienceCurrent licensing and broker check Asset-raising…

THE LATEST recession economic slowdown has been harder on men than women. Between April and November of last year, women gained 300,000 jobs, while men lost nearly 700,000.  Why? Women tend to work in the service industry, where jobs, so far, have exhibited less sensitivity to the business cycle. More men are employed in pro-cyclical industries, such as construction, and declining industries, such as manufacturing. Peter Coy notes that while women may have more job security, they may not have better jobs. Their service industry jobs offer less benefits and stagnant wage growth.

IF YOU talk to some of the biggest housing bears about why home prices rose so far so fast, they're likely to discuss how changes in markets acted to make homes less a consumption good and more of a financial asset—liquid, flippable, less connected to fundamentals. According to this thinking, when the value of the home falls below the size of the mortgage used to purchase it, then the homeowner should just walk away from the home and the loan.Such an action has been dubbed "jingle mail," so named for the sound of the keys in the envelope sent to the bank by the deadbeat…

IT IS occasionally noted that private American aid to developing nations goes a long way toward making up for the nation's embarrassingly small level of official aid, relative to GDP. Just how free with aid donations are America's private citizens? Dramatically so, it seems. Today's "At a glance":

THE American immigration debate has cooled off a bit at the national level, but in corners of the country, it remains a touchy and prominent issue. And when Americans talk about immigration, the focus on converation generally centres on things like fences and factory raids, that is, how best to stem the flow of undocumented workers into the country.Sceptics of such an approach say that no fence will stop those determined to find a better life for themselves and their families. And it seems they may be right. Writing a VoxEU, Drew Keeling explains that during past immigration episodes, it was…

A daily round-up of economic news:The worst of the credit crisis appears to be over, but Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has reiterated that markets remain skittish and the Fed will act as needed. In remarks yesterday, Mr Bernanke said the central bank would increase its auctioned funds as necessary, while acknowledging the issue of moral hazard generated by Fed actions. The spread between inter-bank lending rates and Treasuries—a useful measure of market jitters—is at its lowest level since before the Bear Stearns collapse.American retail sales were down again in April,…

Hundreds of development advocates gathered in Crystal City last week for the annual InterAction Forum urged a fresh effort to bring U.S. foreign assistance efforts into the 21st century. At a luncheon plenary session during the conference, Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-MN) summarized:Foreign assistance is more important to America's national security and foreign policy than ever before. But our Cold-War mechanisms aren't up to the challenge. While Congresswoman McCollum supports the creation of a new cabinet-level agency for global development, she said that the challenges go beyond…

Three months ago, the finance ministers of the U.S., UK, and Japan introduced a Clean Technology Fund to be administered by the World Bank in an effort to "help developing countries bridge the gap between dirty and clean technology."1 Smart and strategic use of limited clean technology financing is absolutely critical if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change. In April the bank's first draft proposal for operation of the Clean Technology Fund was greeted with dismay by many, including a CGD colleague who called it "A Cash Cow for Coal." Sadly, the latest revised draft still fails to…

Burma in the wake of Cyclone Nargis is a laundry list of development failures: Weak governance under a military dictatorship has made the aid response dangerously late Disease and malnutrition, problematic before Nargis, threaten survivors, the government’s latest health recommendations notwithstanding The already-poor transport infrastructure has been washed away or is still under water, making aid delivery even more difficult 1 million people displaced by the flooding of 5,000 square kilometers of prime farmland need food, housing, and jobs, placing enormous strains on local institutions…

"House and Senate negotiators bargaining over a new farm bill have reduced funding for a key school lunch program for poor children abroad and agreed to sharply expand nutrition programs for low-income families and children in the United States." Washington Post, May 6, 2008 "How can the world's hungriest schoolchildren be denied meals while the farm bill being debated in a House-Senate conference provides millions in subsidies for wealthy farmers? That's what Congress proposes. In all fairness, it should not become law." Former Senators Robert Dole and George McGovern, Washington Post, May…

McNealy arrived late, delayed by a meeting at the Pentagon. You could tell he was tired. He’d flown to DC from California with a stopover in Dallas where he stayed up late watching hockey as his beloved San Jose Sharks fell to the Stars in the 4th overtime. Nonetheless, by the time lunch was finished at 1:30pm we had made good progress answering moderator Lawrence MacDonald’s query – does sharing and openness really matter for development? Based on insights from the speakers and the audience, it turns out the answer is “yes” and “in a variety of ways.” Less clear was what to do…

by Manuel Alvarez-Rivera, Puerto RicoSunday's general election in Serbia, which had been widely anticipated to be a tight race between the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS) and For A European Serbia - a coalition of moderate, pro-European Union parties headed by the Democratic Party (DS) - had a completely unexpected outcome, with the pro-EU parties easily prevailing over SRS, according to both estimates published by the Centre for Free Election and Democracy (CeSID) and preliminary results issued by Serbia's Republic Electoral Commission.The results contradicted findings from…

by Edward Hugh: BarcelonaThis post, which is to accompany Manuel's election coverage coming later today, may be considered an update on a previous extensive analysis of Serbia's economic and demographic dilemmas which I carried out at the time of the Presidential election in February (see the post itself for a more details on some of the issues raised here).The "up" I in the title of this post is, of course, a reference to the recent sudden and dramatic rise in the annual rate of Serbian inflation - which after some years of steady reductions suddenly took off in June 2007, and has been…

by Edward Hugh: BarcelonaEconomic confidence across the eurozone has now started eroding steadily, with increasing signs that the growth slowdown is hitting the region’s manufacturing output and labour market, according to a number of indicators we have been seeing in recent days.The European Commission’s eurozone “economic sentiment” index fell notably last month, dropping from 99.6 in March to 97.1 in April – the lowest level since August 2005. With the indicator regarded as good guide to growth trends, the reasonably steep decline pointed to a marked deceleration in economic…

Claus Vistesen CopenhagenIn this note, I am going to have a look at the recent slew of economic data for the month of March as well as other relevant information. Last time I did my monthly review of Japan the data had not budged much. This time is different. As per usual my analysis will progress by looking at Japan's economy from five angles which should subsequently yield a full picture of the current important yardsticks for assessing just where Japan might be heading. Consequently, I will have a look at price developments, domestic demand (also the labour market), domestic investment…

by Edward Hugh: BarcelonaUkrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said last week that he had agreed to let Libya grow wheat on 100,000 hectares of land in the Ukraine. In exchange, Libya promised to include the former Soviet republic in construction and gas deals.With so many interesting debates going on the Demography Matters blog at the present time I find it hard to pull myself away, but I couldn't help getting drawn into the implications of the points raised by this article in the Financial Times about how the global pressure on food supplies and the rapid increase in prices is now leading…

I make it a practice not to spend a lot of time in these pages on my personal interests and pursuits.  More than occasionally, something related to the general brief covered by Going Private will overlap with my overly broad spectrum of interests, but I don't spend a lot of time on such things in the abstract.  Be this as it may, occasionally, I can't help myself. All of this is a round about way of saying that I have finally grown to understand one of my guilty pleasures: Apple.  In doing so, I have managed to focus some attention on some structural issues that have been, at…

"Human Capital" is a term that has seen quite a bit of use.  Personally, I would far prefer it if the term would depart forever from the already hopelessly twisted lexicon of buyouts (and any other field in which I will eventually play some part).  I tend to like people in the Human Resources of Sub Rosa's various daughter companies, that is to say the junior people in Human Resources of Sub Rosa's various daughter companies.  The senior people have a far more inflated sense of their importance within the organization and the world at large.  Often it is only…

I have to admit to having a bit of a soft spot for Apollo.  At the very least, they seem to have a grip on the cyclic nature of economies, and how a private equity firm can, and should, use the ups and downs that naturally accompany such shifts to make money.  They also seem to have been one of the few firms to hold on to the notion that private equity is a contrarian sport.  But there are a few new features among large LBO firms that, I suppose, they couldn't resist adopting.  For example:On April 20, 2007, Apollo Management Holdings, L.P., one of the entities in the…

On or about December 3, 1994, defendant  THEODORE JOHN KACZYNSKI, a/k/a "FC,"  knowingly and willfully did deposit for mailing and delivery and knowingly and willfully did cause to be delivered by mail at North Caldwell, in the District of New Jersey, and elsewhere, according to the direction thereon, nonmailable matter, to wit: a device and composition which could ignite and explode, with the intent to kill and injure another, and which did result in the death of Thomas J. Mosser. From:  Equity Private <equityprivate@hushmail.com>To:  aaa bbb…

Thomas Sowell spells it out:If you want cheering crowds, don't bother to study economics. It will only hold you back. Tell people what they want to hear-- and they don't want to hear about supply and demand.No, supply and demand is not too "complex." It is just not very emotionally satisfying.