The stock market is up so far today on mixed readings of the tea leaves. The Conference Board’s index of leading indicators rose unexpectedly, which elicited some positive reports, but Reuters was not impressed, noting that the 0.1% rise showed weakness but not a formal recession. The Wall Street Journal attributed the rise to analyst […]
Read more...The Financial Times reports on a FT/Harris survey found a surprising consensus across eight countries in Europe and Asia, as well as in the US, that increasing income disparity was undesirable. Not surprisingly, respondents favored increasing taxes on the rich. Of course, this poses an interesting conundrum for politicians, given the sway of multinational corporations […]
Read more...Australian professors John Quiggin (economics) and Dan Hunter (law) in a provocatively titled paper “Money Ruins Everything,” which is coming out in the Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal, argue that the nature of innovation is changing, and that in turn means that we need to rethink policies and incentives. Specifically, they note that the […]
Read more...Boy, they must really feel guilty about the Bear deal over at JP Morgan. The Financial Times reports that efforts to find fired Bear employees jobs starts at the top. Jamie Dimon wrote personally to 30 clients so far. While this is obviously a great PR move, and stands in sharp contrast to Vikram Pandit’s […]
Read more...‘Fewer hurricanes’ as world warms BBC. A new study disputes previous findings, but does predict that hurricanes will be more intense. Sell the Stock: Financial conflicts are hobbling the Supreme Court Washington Post. More confirmation that we really do have the best government money can buy. French Judge Orders Refund for Pre-Installed XP Slashdot US […]
Read more...Conventional wisdom is that markets are the best place to get unbiased forecasts, but we see a sharp divergence of views between what TIPS buyers and Treasury traders in general anticipate inflation rates will be versus consumer expectations and the continued high inflows of new funds into commodities. We’ve seen this sort of divergence before. […]
Read more...Reader Richard Kline is providing a mini-series that was prompted by an anonymous reader who had observed that a complex systems theory view might raise doubts about regulatory policy. Financial overseers believe that liquidity is always and ever good, but that view may be naive: Perhaps a lesson to be learned here is that liquidity […]
Read more...I kid you not, the headline above is a faithful representation of the thrust of an article today in the New York Times, “The Scars of Losing a Home,” by Yale economist Robert Shiller. With friends like this, liberals have no need of enemies. Shiller’s argument is ludicrous: implement the legislation before Congress, which guarantes […]
Read more...Mark Thoma has posted a nice little piece by his colleague Tim Duy on what a housing bubble looks like (as in charts, not in those “what were they thinking” pictures of overpriced shoeboxes now going begging). It illustrates very nicely the most basic symptom of pricing gone awry: how housing prices hit unprecedented highs […]
Read more...Plastic bag policy ‘a diversion’ BBC The World’s Spookiest Weapons Popular Science Big Pay Day for Big Brown: $50+ million 1440 Wall Street. Will someone please show up at the Belmont to let us see what that horse can really do? Secretariat gave his spectacular Belmont performance because he was pushed by a superb horse, […]
Read more...There has been a raft of articles about the Federal Reserve’s new found interest in the question of asset bubbles, suggesting that the Fed might be ready to shift policy and exhibit more willingness to rein them in. Yesterday, a page one Wall Street Journal story discussed at length research central bank chairman Bernanke has […]
Read more...The interpretations of the implications of the Riyadh-Washington pas de deux over oil production increases were surprisingly disparate, a seeming Rorschach test of sentiment about the US, Bush, and the Middle East. The papers that see themselves as US opinion leaders, namely the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, stressed how little the […]
Read more...Ooh, just when you though you had your had a pretty complete list of Looming Problems, the officialdom goes and increases it. An article in the current issue of Science reports that nitrogen is a significant culprit and environmental degradation. Nitrogen pollution is a serious matter because there isn’t at the moment any obvious way […]
Read more...Alien threat to truffle delicacy BBC Bletchley Park faces bleak future ZDnet New Idea Could Solve Black Hole Information Mystery Space Wildlife numbers plummet globally: WWF PhysOrg US Gives Little To China Compared To Other Nations Culture of Life News. And don’t think the Chinese haven’t taken notice. Credit Problems Spreading Beyond Mortgages: FDIC CNBC […]
Read more...As a resident of New York City, I am acutely aware of the perils of neuroticism. This town is full of it. I am as guilty as anyone, although I try to keep it under wraps. If I wasn’t concerned about looking like a control freak in front of clients and friends, I would grill […]
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