Although this is a bit off topic for this blog, I find Paul Krugman’s op-ed pieces on health care to be among his best work. He manages to cover a good deal of ground in a confined space, and convey useful data without losing generalist readers. Although he never mentions Michael Moore, Krugman’s piece, “The […]
Read more...As a someone who has a good memory for numbers and therefore can’t be bothered to store data in my cell phone, this article confirms my prejudices. From the UK’s Telegraph: An over reliance on technology is leading to a dumbing down of the nation’s brain power, according a study published today. In a society […]
Read more...This piece is from Tyler Cowen, and as a contrarian and a cat owner, of course I find it to be terribly clever: Many people have been clamoring for this topic over at the secret blog. My views are simple: we have too few cats in the world, relative to dogs. Dogs, for reasons of […]
Read more...An article in the Financial Times reports on something truly extraordinary: rating agency Moody’s issuing a report, due out Monday, that is highly critical of the private equity industry. And we don’t mean because they have gotten away with a lot of “cov lite” deals, which are debt financings for their transactions that lack the […]
Read more...I really didn’t expect “rogue agent” to become a mini-theme, but a mere two days apart, we have stories in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times on rogue agents ripping off the unwary and the unsophisticated. However, as we discussed, the Journal story about rogue mortgage brokers made it sound as if […]
Read more...Stephen Cecchetti, professor of finance at Brandeis’ business school and former director of research for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, makes an elegant and persuasive argument at VoxEU in favor of a single payer medical system: it’s inevitable. Why? Cecchetti starts from the premise that improved genetic testing will provide foreknowledge of an […]
Read more...This story from MarketWatch describes another ugly aspect of subprime lending that is likely to get more press as foreclosures rise: minority groups with credit records that would have qualified them for prime loans were steered to subprime products at a far greater rate than their white counterparts. And the industry’s defense? Rogue brokers, of […]
Read more...Has the Murdoch era already begun? Two days in a row we have had page one stories in the Wall Street Journal that managed to skew the facts. Today’s piece, “Foreign Investors Face New Hurdles Across the Globe,” is misleading in a minor and a major way. The minor way is likely to be apparent […]
Read more...In a firm, articulate op-ed piece in the Financial Times, “Protect workers from the private equiteers,” Jack Dromey, an officer of the trade union Unite, says, “Workers deserve better in private equity deals.” I’ve gotten so used to writers that are afraid to take on the orthodoxy of free markets that it’s refreshing to see […]
Read more...In “GAO: Consultant Conflicts May Slash Pension Returns,” CFO.com reports on a GAO study that looked into the performance of defined benefit pension funds that used consultants that had undisclosed conflicts of interest. The analysis found that the funds that relied on these advisors had lower investment returns. Their annual results were 1.3% lower on […]
Read more...Larry Summers has a remarkable piece in the Financial Times today, “Harness market forces to share prosperity.” It’s noteworthy not so much for the information, arguments, and recommendations Summers makes regarding rising income inequality, but for the line Summers takes. After so many years in the wilderness, it appears that liberals are finally regaining their […]
Read more...The press is all a twitter about the possibility of a Bloomberg presidential bid (see ReutersNew York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times). Despite the New York mayor’s statement that he is not a candidate, his announcement Tuesday that he was leaving the Republican party was seen as precursor to a bid […]
Read more...This is the title of what, according to Steven Shapin in the New Yorker, is a very good book by British historian David Edgerton on technology. Edgerton makes a bold argument, namely, that the way we think about technology is dominated by a heroic narrative in which a new approach sweeps aside what came before […]
Read more...In a MarketWatch story that was ostensibly about the continuing saga of the Bear Stearns hedge fund implosion comes a juicy tidbit about the composition of subprime loans. It turns out half weren’t even for housing purchases but to refinance other debt: Subprime loans are made to less credit-worthy borrowers at higher rates. It’s a […]
Read more...A post on the Guardian’s blog by Jeremy Seabrook blames a lot of the social ills afflicting British youth on the intrusion of the marketplace: binge-drinking, the “normalisation” of drugs, the cult of celebrity, the supremacy of what money can buy, incivility, absence of respect, obesity, the epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases – are by-products […]
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