When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. Matthew 27:24 It no doubt sounds extreme to compare the SEC’s proposed changes in regulation […]
Read more...Today in the Financial Times, John Plender has an apple pie and motherhood column on the importance of central bank independence, It’s a tad ironic, since he fails to recognize that it’s an illusion in the US. But Plender isn’t to be faulted. An entire generation has grown up in the Greenspan/Bernanke era, and thus […]
Read more...It’s one thing to read an apocalyptic alarm from, say, a blogger or a newsletter writer. It’s quite another to see it coming from an analyst at a large institution, in this case AIG. Bernard Connolly is deeply critical of central banks, not just of their recent actions but also of their very existence, and […]
Read more...Whether it comes to fruition is to be determined, but taken at face value, Connecticut senator Joseph Lieberman’s proposal to bar institutional investors such as pension and index funds from investing in commodities is a Nixon-goes-to-China moment, a significant indicator of Wall Street’s fallen standing. Lieberman has been a staunch defender of the securities industry […]
Read more...We’ve taken a dim view of plans to use government sponsored enterprises like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and the Federal Housing Administration as vehicles to prop up a housing market that, even with its decline to date, is still overpriced in many areas of the country relative to incomes. Many have spoken in favor […]
Read more...Bloomberg reports (hat tip Calculated Risk) that the US, Japan, China, India, and South Korea agreed on the need to cut energy subsidies and take other measures: The U.S. and the four Asian nations, together accounting for half the world’s energy consumption, said today wider use of alternative fuels such as clean coal, nuclear power, […]
Read more...An article in today’s Wall Street Journal, “Insider Joins Critics of the Fed, Faulting Credit-Crisis Programs,” discusses at some length a recent speech by Richmond Fed president Jeffrey Lacker in which he took issue with some of the Fed’s recent financial services industry rescue efforts. The article itself failed to do justice to his speech, […]
Read more...Gideon Rachman in “We cannot go on eating like this” in the Financial Times, points out the increasing heated discussion between advanced and emerging economies over resource issues, particularly food. The positions of the two camps are fairly easy to set forth: the West says, “You can’t have what we have, it’ll ruin the planet,” […]
Read more...In his final speech as President, Dwight Eisenhower warned against a heretofore unrecognized danger to America, namely the growing influence of what the Commander in Chief called the “military/industrial complex”. This excerpt reminds us that despite our nostalgic view of the 1950s, the struggle against Communist was seen as an epic battle: Throughout America’s adventure […]
Read more...A good comment by Philip Stephens in the Financial Times, “Uncomfortable truths for a new world of them and us,” is a polite and understated wake-up call to the fading former imperialist of the West. He notes that the countries currently dominant in major international organizations assume that life will continue more or less as […]
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...I’m intrigued when a commentator gives high praise to a work by someone who comes from a political vantage different from his own. I get even more interested when another take on the same piece seems straight out of Rashomon, a radically different account with only a few facts in common. The opus in question […]
Read more...Kevin Funnell at Bank Laywer’s Blog fulminates about an idea to deal with the burgeoning homeowner debt crisis, namely a proposal by House Representative Raúl M. Grijalva based on (but different in some key respects) from a Dean Baker proposal called “own to rent”. While there are problems with the idea, there is more than […]
Read more...The headline above is perhaps the most important message contained in the front page Wall Street Journal article, “Energy Watchdog Warns Of Oil-Production Crunch.” Well, in fairness, it may rank as important as the thrust of the article, which is that the IEA, which recently had predicted that oil supplies would be able to more […]
Read more...It’s hard to read the tea leaves of the European Union at such a remove, but a public show of disagreement, even if done politely, is not an everyday spectacle. Frances’ finance minister Christine Lagarde urged central bankers to alleviate currency misalignment. This is mainly code for “do something about the pricey euro” but is […]
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