I’m going to tell a personal story and hope you regard it as useful rather than self indulgent. As regular readers may know, I am currently on a cruise with my family. If you ever think of going on a cruise, and you value your life, avoid Oceania Cruises. Safety is paramount, and they blew […]
Read more...Apologies to be somewhat late to this item and more terse (and spare on links for some of the arguments) than I’d normally be (I’m at sea and the satellite connection is pricey). Monday, the Financial Times reported that a poll it commissioned jointly with Harris found widespread international opposition to globalization, as well as […]
Read more...Our colleague Susan Webber of Aurora Advisors has a new article, “Fit vs. Fitness,” in the current issue of The Conference Board Review. The editors were initially skeptical that anything new could be said on the subject of the glass ceiling, but this article persuaded them otherwise. We hope you’ll agree. She draws on personal […]
Read more...In the wake of Murdoch succeeding in his bid for the Wall Street Journal, this review by Russell Baker, “Goodbye to Newspapers?” on two books describing the decline of the newspaper, and its implications for the public, is aptly timed. Not surprisingly, Baker sees the corporate, as opposed to family, ownership, as a major culprit. […]
Read more...Disclosure: I used to be a huge fan of the Economist, because it was well written, broad ranging, intelligently non-partisan, and (at least politically) often contrarian. But ever since the start of the Bush era, it has taken a marked shift to the right, in both its political and economic coverage. Take this story from […]
Read more...Height is influenced by the quality of nutrition in childhood and as a result, in many societies, it has also been a class indicator. One example: Winston Churchill, who as a Liberal Party member and Home Secretary, was instrumental in the passage of minimum wages and the Liberal Reforms, which among other things, provided for […]
Read more...This Penn State study, reported at PhysOrg.com, ascertained that narcissistic CEOs gravitate towards bold moves, like big acquisitions or marked changes in strategy, which leads to more variable (although no worse on average) performance. The interesting thing about this finding is the disconnect between Wall Street pressures and boardroom hiring practices. At least according to […]
Read more...Why do Americans save so little? It’s the temptation, stupid. John Kay of the Financial Times ponders why Americans and Brits are so lousy at saving when our advanced capital market offer us more attractive investment (and speculative) vehicles than other economies. Because they also offer more, and more varied borrowing products, and let’s face […]
Read more...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 […]
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