Australia records Tamiflu-resistant swine case ABC (hat tip reader Skippy) You Fold Robert Waldman, Angry Bear Food for Thought Michael Panzner New York City Braces for Risk of Higher Seas Wall Street Journal (hat tip reader John D) Easy money fuels all markets, but not forever Reuters State kicks in $27M to keep Goldman Sachs […]
Read more...I have no idea whether this estimate is still valid, but back in the days when I was working with O’Connor & Associates, the head of technology (and O’Connor had a well run technology operation) said the cost of documenting software (as in having the developers write up what they did in sufficient detail so […]
Read more...The US tonight imposed steep tariffs on tires, a move directed against Chinese imports. From the Wall Street Journal: The Obama administration will put steep import duties on Chinese passenger and light truck tires, responding to what the U.S. International Trade Commission determined to be a surge of Chinese tire exports that has rocked the […]
Read more...By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. The following top economists and financial experts believe that the economy cannot recover unless the big, insolvent banks are broken up in an orderly fashion: Nobel prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz Nobel prize-winning economist, Ed Prescott Dean and professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School, and chairman of […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. Back in February, I asked you if we were experiencing a recession or depression. A plurality said it was a depression with a small ’d.’ I agreed and went on to explain why. Since then, things have changed and we seem to be on the verge of what […]
Read more...Reader Don B pointed out a generally top notch piece by Luigi Zingales at a new publication, National Affairs, on how the financial crisis may change attitudes towards what he calls “democratic capitalism”. Even though the article is thoughtful and well written, it does fall prey to a major bit of intellectual sloppiness that is […]
Read more...Dear readers, I am about to do a face plant, forgive the absence of normal posts. I will try to put up a morning post or two to compensate for the lack of the usual evening fare. Treatment of Alan Turing was “appalling” – PM Number10 UK ‘could face blackouts by 2016 BBC Bank of […]
Read more...Served by Jesse of Le Café Américain This news has appeared on the Agence France-Presse (hat tip Michel Proulx) and I have translated this into English for now. One has to wonder if the great Speech Organizer will actually say anything that is worthy of the adjective, “major.” Someone has possibly told him that if […]
Read more...By Marshall Auerback, an investment strategist who writes for the New Deal 2.0. A history of failed attempts to introduce universal health insurance has left us with a system in which the government pays directly or indirectly for more than half of the nation’s health care, but the actual delivery both of insurance and of […]
Read more...Ex-AIG adviser who practiced voodoo on victims gets 12 years for fraud Investment News (hat tip reader Scott) DoctoRx Comments on the President’s Healthcare Speech and Goes Where Few Politicians Have Gone Before DoctoRx Tactical Error: Health Care vs Finance Regulatory Reform Barry Ritholtz Delivering a brilliant healthcare speech Ed Harrison Buyers of Huge Manhattan […]
Read more...Silly me. Here I thought the main reason that the economics profession had not only missed the crisis, but for the most part, gave the Fed a free pass on its colossal policy errors, was that everyone drank the same Kool-Aid, theory-wise. It turns out that the Fed is not someone to cross, at least […]
Read more...When trade volumes tanked in the later part of 2008, quite a few observers expected a rise in protectionism. We haven’t seen a Smoot-Hawley analogue, a wide ranging measure that elicits retaliation. But that does not prevent policy makers from more targeted forms of gamesmanship. Trade has retreated from front-burner coverage due to the modest […]
Read more...By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. A 2005 letter in premier scientific journal Nature reviews the research on trust and economics: Trust … plays a key role in economic exchange and politics. In the absence of trust among trading partners, market transactions break down. In the absence of trust in a country’s institutions and leaders, […]
Read more...The Financial Times tonight reports that Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein made “startling” remarks in Germany, for instance, that a lot of banking activity is rather thin on redeeming social value. Oh, and he admitted bankers might be paid too much, too. Gee, with revelations like that, what might he to ‘fess up to next? That […]
Read more...Even though there has been an increasing level of revolutionary saber-rattling in comments, it’s hard to see what the outlet for the anger against the banking industry will be. The brief surge of letter-writing, e-mails, and calls to Congressmen to forestall the TARP proved useless. But Americans don’t go to the barricades or do general […]
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