Readers doubtless know that I am very fond of the Financial Times. I therefore find it distressing when a writer, particularly a capable writer, puts out a story that is enough off base as to be misguided. Case in point: “Bulge-bracket banking model has spawned monsters” by Tony Jackson. He is unhappy about the way […]
Read more...As Paul Sonn of NYU Law School writes in “The Fight for the Minimum Wage” in the American Prospect, various state legislatures, responding to pressure by industries that employ low-wage workers, are exempting various groups such as “tipped” restaurants workers and home health aides from the new federal minimum wage requirements by exploiting ambiguities in […]
Read more...Can you tell who is who on this test? Now admittedly there is sample bias (I’m sure they had to cherry pick the Unabomber’s saner moments). But I scored only 25%!javascript:void(0)
Read more...More test fun. Dani Rodrik pointed to this test (which he found via Greg Mankiw). The test measures your views on the right/left and authoritarian/libertarian axes. The results section plots where you stand and you can see where you stand relative to contemporary and historical figures. The contemporary grid below:Full disclosure: I’m located pretty close […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal reported on what appears to be a partial rebuttal by Wal-Mart of charges made by Julie Roehm, its deposed marketing executive. A quick recap: Roehm was ousted last December. She sued for breach of contract and unfair dismissal. Wal-Mart counterclaimed, asserting that she had had an affair with a subordinate, taken […]
Read more...A few days ago, Chris Hayes’ article in The Nation, “Hip Heterodoxy,” set off a huge chatter among economics blogs raising the question of heterodoxy in the profession (which by all counts is very much in retreat). The article below, “Life Among the Econ,” by Axel Leijonhufvud on the culture and ritual of the Econ, […]
Read more...The Journal’s front page story, “Homeowners Abroad Take Currency Gamble in Loans,” had numerous anecdotes about how Eastern Europeans are active in the carry trade, borrowing in cheaper currencies, gambling that the interest rate savings won’t be offset by currency appreciation. Some have compared the carry trade to picking up nickels in front of a […]
Read more...To clarify: this list of “censored,” meaning seriously underreported, articles is for 2007 and covers stories from roughly July 2005 through June 2006. I call you attention to it primarily because it’s important, but secondarily, because we actually discussed a few on this blog (they appear to continue to be underreported), despite the fact that […]
Read more...An article in the New York Review of Books, “The Specter Haunting Your Office,” discusses three books, one by Louis Uchitelle, The Disposable American, meaning the disposable employee; one by Greg LeRoy, on the way corporations play states and muncipalities to extract economic concessions; and one by John Bogle, on “managers’ capitalism” and how it […]
Read more...When a stalwart member of the right disassociates itself from the Wall Street Journal’s editorial policies, you know things are bad. Thanks to Brad DeLong for this item. From the National Review’s blog, The Corner: ….the Wall Street Journal editorial conference…. I was… well, no, not foaming at the mouth, but gaping in wonder at […]
Read more...One of the elements of the American Dream is that each generation will enjoy a better standard of living than its predecessors. As this article, “Not Your Father’s Pay: Why Wages Today Are Weaker” in the Wall Street Journal makes clear, that is no longer true: American men in their 30s today are worse off […]
Read more...This article on the Guardian’s website, on the failure of the Food and Drug Administration to be sufficiently pro-consumer, pro-safety in its drug approval process, does a nice job of summing up the issues (and poking holes in the FDA’s lame defenses). One particularly fine observation: Let’s not forget that a provision in the FDA […]
Read more...We Americans like to think highly of our supposed freedoms, yet we have allowed privacy and civil rights to be eroded in the name of security and convenience (and yes, I mean you, how many times have you given your personal coordinates to a website?) The EU is taking the view that Google is keeping […]
Read more...Kash Mansouri at The Street Light has an excellent post, “Income Inequality, International Comparisons,” which goes a long way towards debunking the myth that income inequality is the result of education, or technology, or globalization. Note how the debate over inequality has evolved. We’ve (largely) gone from the denial phase to the “we have to […]
Read more...One news items that hasn’t gotten much press attention is the effort to close a loophole in the tax code by which the “carried interest” of private equity professionals, which is labor income, gets capital gains treatment. Moreover, the funds are often able to get their regular management fee the same favorable tax treatment as […]
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