US uses bullets ill-suited for new ways of war Examiner (hat tip Some Assembly Required) Fish to Oil Specs: Thanks! Cassandra If you think it’s the “index speculators”… Steve Waldman Wall Street Journal Evidence That Speculators Are Responsible for the Run Up in Oil? Econospeak New surveys on August quant meltdown: Investors have learned a […]
Read more...There’s an odd little story on the home page of the Financial Times website, odd in three respects. First, it discusses a development, namely, the launch of a credit derivatives clearinghouse that is important enough that it ought to be reported more broadly, yet several searches on Google News came up empty-handed. Readers no doubt […]
Read more...The Fed announced that Frederic Mishkin will be leaving the central bank effective August 31. The governor’s term extended through 2014, but he chose to leave early to return to the Columbia faculty, where he teaches at the business school. Personally, I think this is a good thing. Mishkin was on the FOMC and a […]
Read more...A reader pointed me to a great post at Institutional Risk Analytics, which consists of an interview with Richard Alford, an economist in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s foreign department during the heady years of the Plaza Accord and active FX intervention by the Group of Seven who now works as an expert […]
Read more...It’s remarkable how certain words elicit knee-jerk reactions. Take “speculation”. I’ve questioned the prevailing view that an price increase of nearly 50% in six months in crude oil prices is entirely a function of demand (meaning immediate consumption, the kind most economists think of when they draw demand curves) and supply. That is partly because […]
Read more...Tasmanian Devils Get Reprieve In Australia’s Old Penal Colony Wall Street Journal US Soldiers Losing Homes Rapidly, Bush Threatens GI Bill Veto Culture of Life News Why McCain’s “Cap-and-Trade” Won’t Work Nearly as Well as Obama’s Robert Reich Bush ‘plans Iran air strike by August’ Asia Times and US is unwise to deny Iran’s key […]
Read more...Reader Abdul sent me a piece that ran in the New York Post on simmering disputes between investment banks trying to unwind CDOs and monolines that provided credit enhancement. Yes, I know the Post isn’t the usual place to see what amounts to breaking financial news, but it was the first out with some stories […]
Read more...In a settlement of an anti-trust lawsuit (one might more accurately call it a capitulation), the National Association of Realtors will open its multiple listing service to Internet brokers. The NAR tried to put a brave face on this development, but consider: 1. Anyone finding a property via an internet listing will pay the Internet […]
Read more...In general, I’m not terribly fond of imprecise and emotion-laden terms such as “scary bad”. However, in this case, the more accurate description might be “mind-numbingly awful, pointing to increased financial instability.” Michael Pettis gives us a very thorough report on the stunning and mystifying report from China that its FX reserves increased by $75.4 […]
Read more...Veteran investor George Soros, in an interview with the Telegraph, describes speculation as a significant factor in the recent spike in oil prices. However, he doesn’t expect prices to break until there are signs of economic weakening. Later in the post, I’ll provide some information that suggests how traditional supply/demand forces could have been swamped […]
Read more...It doesn’t take long to pick up on a news outlet’s quirks. For instance, Bloomberg tries to be out first with stories, yet also provide relevant market details for busy investors. They often compensate for their artlessness via juicy quotes. The New York Times, lacking the staff to report on business comprehensively, looks to leverage […]
Read more...Protests in S Korea over US beef BBC Policy Reforms May Increase Petty Corruption PhysOrg Stan Collender Wonders Why Nobody in the Bush Administration Has Gone to Jail Brad DeLong Student researching al-Qaida tactics held for six days Guardian On Israel and the US campaign bus Gideon Rachman, Financial Times Foreclosure’s Residue New York Times […]
Read more...Yes, sports fans, I am late in reporting on this, but since the focus of the RGE Monitor-sponsored panel discussion was fundamental in nature, the loss of a few days in a slow news period has not lead to any sightings that would contradict either the tone or the specifics of the discussion. The panel […]
Read more...Below is an article in the New York Review of Books by John Cassidy about a new book by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. The piece does a good job of giving an overview of behavioral economics, presenting (and critiquing) how Thaler and Sunstein see it being […]
Read more...Willem Buiter decided to provide some further thoughts on regulatory reform over the holiday weekend. Given the nature of posting, and the difficulty of devising banking reforms, most proposals are going to fall short on detail. But this one falls a bit shorter than I’d like. For instance, Buiter clearly assumes international cooperation; these ideas […]
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