Why does the media treat entirely predictable events as news? Fitch has been saying since last April that commercial real estate was exhibiting the same sort of frothiness as subprime. CMBS spreads started widening sharply last August. Investors started pulling back from purchases in September, expecting prices to fall considerably. In November, Nouriel Roubini added […]
Read more...Doctors `Repeatedly or Deliberately’ Break FDA Drug-Trial Rules Bloomberg Government records incorrectly kill off thousands, and there’s no easy fix MSNBC. Proving you are alive when, say, the Social Security Administration has deemed you to be dead is no trivial matter. Rationality Quotes 10 Overcoming Bias What debt collectors can’t do to you MarketWatch. Another […]
Read more...I’ve been meaning to discuss how increased income disparity is bad for economic growth, because in the end you wind up with insufficient labor income to fund consumption (note that America’s high consumption rate has been achieved by lowering its already low savings rate to zero) and too much capital chasing too few investment opportunities […]
Read more...The yen has had a major spike up in the last few days, going from 107 to just over 103 in Tokyo trading today. Note that moves of the yen are both the result of and the cause of market turmoil. When markets get nervous, traders cut back on yen-funded positions. They must buy yen […]
Read more...Ben Stein gives us another installment of his usual sloppy thinking. In his latest offering, “Exxon Mobil Needs a Hug,” he declares: After all, Big Oil is big us. And we need us. Since I don’t consider myself Big Oil, and I imagine most readers would object to being considered to be Big Oil, all […]
Read more...According to a University of New Hampshire study, children who are spanked are more likely to have an appetite for kinky less-than-savory sexual practices. So is the anti-spanking movement really about sexual conformity? From PhysOrg: New research by a University of New Hampshire domestic abuse expert says spanking children affects their sex lives as adults. […]
Read more...The New York Times has an odd story today, “Is a Lean Economy Turning Mean?” which discusses how conditions for workers have become dire. New jobs are scarce, and many of the ones out there don’t pay as well as what employees got in previous roles. Hello, downward mobility. What makes the piece peculiar is […]
Read more...Spamming Not Protected by Constitution PhysOrg. As much as I hate spam, I don’t buy the logic of this decision. I’d much rather have a cluttered inbox that have free speech curtailed. Note however, this is a Virginia Supreme Court decision, so the impact (as of now) is limited. Japan seeking to govern top news […]
Read more...We have said that Countrywide is an institution that has deliberately operated on the edge of the law. Apparently we’ve been far too charitable in our views. The federal bankruptcy trustees in Florida, Georgia, and Ohio have decided to take on Countrywide for a persistent practice of attempting to lard up the amount owed by […]
Read more...Quite often, policy debates get mired in superficial, outdated, manipulated, or simply incomplete understandings of the facts. Getting relevant data is vital to coming up with intelligent approaches. Unfortunately, Paul Krugman, who has tried getting to the bottom of whether trade has increased income inequality in the US, concludes that we don’t have the right […]
Read more...Insured Defaults Rise as Cure Rate Hits Historic Low Housing Wire. This is decidedly Not Good. Free Fall In Munis, Worst Month Since 2003 Michael Shedlock. This translates into a buying opportunity, not immediately, but keep on top of the muni bond offering calendars. When the rabbit is almost all the way through the anaconda […]
Read more...A number of commentators (see here and here) have taken note Warren Buffett’s favorable remarks in his much-anticipated annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders on sovereign wealth fund investment in the US. What I found far more significant was his somewhat-longer-form observations about how we had gotten ourselves in the situation where SWF-type capital inflows […]
Read more...As this Financial Times article explains, taking the liquidation of the funds out of Bear’s chosen agent’s hands opens up the possibility of a suit against Bear to recover damages. From the Financial Times: Rebel investors have seized two failed Bear Stearns hedge funds in a move their lawyers hope will give them a platform […]
Read more...Jim Hamilton, in his latest post at Econbrowser, uses as a point of departure the oft-invoked image that Bernanke is walking a tightrope between inflation and recession. Because Hamilton is a Serious Economist, he has to be measured and fact based, which sometimes means he can’t be as pointed as I suspect he might like […]
Read more...Paul Davies, in “True impact of mark-to-market accounting in the credit crisis,” discusses a paper by Tobias Adrian of the New York Fed and Hyun Song Shin of Princeton University that claim that mark-to-market accounting play a direct, perhaps central role in the credit bubble, and that it works just as dramatically in reverse. Once […]
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