Philip Pilkington: Behavioral Economics as Victorian Moralizing
Why behavioural economics is nothing but Victorian morality passed down to the modern age.
Read more...Author Archives: Yves Smith
Wolf Richter: Housing Bubble 2.0 Hits Messy Resistance In California
San Francisco may be extreme, but housing bubbles are now re-cropping up across the nation – and so are the very factors that helped inflate the prior housing bubble and then magnified the ferociousness of its implosion.
Read more...How Bitcoin Plays Into the Hands of Central Bankers and Will Facilitate the Use of Negative Interest Rates
Bitcoin enthusiasts like to present it as a “power to the people” form of money, stressing its apparent lack of ownership (the “Napster for finance“). They stress the lack of need for a “trusted party” like a bank or broker to verify that a payment has been made. And many clearly relish the idea of launching a currency outside the control of central banks (plus this beats Cryptonomicon in geekery).
If you believe the hype, you’ve been had.
Read more...Links 1/22/14
Michael Olenick: “Conversation with the Receptionists” – An Obamacare Skit
Why Germans Should Stop Mowing Their Own Lawn
Yves here. I’m featuring this post in part as a development exercise to Cliff, a German economist who has been blogging off and on since 2011 and plans to post on a more consistent basis. He has been warned that the NC readership can be rough. His thesis: “Home production may be a popular or cultural preference, economically sensible it is not.”
Read more...Patronage Plowing and Class Warfare
Yes sports fans, New York City’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, is showing his true colors as a liberal by….pointedly not plowing the Upper East Side.
But is this really an effective gesture to stick it to the 1%, or even the top 5% in Manhattan (which is a lot higher income than the top 5% elsewhere)?
Read more...Minimum Wages: The Effects on Employment and Labour-Force Turnover
Minimum-wage increases are associated with a lower probability that a job will end, and with a lower probability that an unemployed person will find work.
Read more...Links 1/21/14
Claire’s Stores: Private Equity Broker-Dealer Violations in Action
In an earlier post, we discussed the ongoing violation of SEC broker-dealer regulations by private equity firms when they collect “transaction fees” for buying and selling companies on behalf of the funds they manage. The 1934 Exchange Act mandates that only SEC-registered broker-dealers may collect transaction-based compensation (subject only to limited exceptions which are not […]
Read more...Philip Pillkington: Libertarian Paternalism is Clearly an Oxymoron
“Blackwhite…this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink.”
— George Orwell, 1984
Read more...Alain Damasio on the NSA: “701,000 Hours in Custody”
Yves here. Reader Mike M highly recommended what he called “one kick-ass anti-NSA/call to revolt article.” Even though my once-pretty-good French has eroded due to lack of use, from what I could read I agreed and asked for reader help with translation.
Aside from its merit as a stand-alone work, I also thought this article was noteworthy as an indicator of sentiment in France about the Snowden revelations.
Read more...Gaius Publius: `Wall Street & the Security Apparatus Want a Real SOB… Chris Christie`
So now we know why the Republicans have been going to such extreme lengths to try to preserve embattled New Jersey governor Chris Christie as a national figure…
Read more...Japan to US: You Can’t Railroad the Trans-Pacific Partnership
By Clive, a regular Naked Capitalism commenter and self-confessed Japan-o-phile
The headline, in a one liner, is what this article is saying. You may have to take my word for it if you’re not a Japanese reader, but read on to find out why I hope you can.
Read more...The Robots are Coming for White Collar Jobs
Yves here. Bad enough having to worry about offshoring eating into your employment prospects and compensation level. Alan Blinder, in Senate testimony in 2007, had argued that up to 29% of US jobs were “offshorable,” including many service industry positions. And now this….
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