Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

What Happened to America’s Shopping Experience?

The American Shopping Experience has changed over the years with people abandoning in person shopping to internet shopping. What has evolved with the use of the internet is major malls and stores closing their doors and increases in warehouse shopping via the internet. Some History An Austrian-born émigré and architect in 1948, Victor Gruen was […]

Cutting Corporate Rates May Cost Billions

Via Taxprof blogWall Street Journal: Tax Twist: At Some Firms, Cutting Corporate Rates May Cost Billions: What Uncle Sam has given to the earnings of companies like Citigroup, AIG, and Ford he soon might take away. President Barack Obama has said, most recently during last month’s presidential debates, that the 35% U.S. corporate tax rate […]

Charlie Stross Discovers that The WSJ has been Teaching to the Test

And, therefore, ripping off its (at least European) advertisers: The Guardian has just broken a new story about News International: Wall Street Journal circulation scam claims senior Murdoch executive: Andrew Langhoff resigns as European publishing chief after exposure of secret channels of cash to help boost sales figures. To quote a little bit of the […]

Economists = Idiots? Part 1829

It was their idea, so it’s no surprise they like paying interest on reserves, even excess reserves: For quite a while, the Fed was quite happy to have that money on its books. Indeed, the power to pay interest on reserves was considered a key tool to keep control over all the liquidity the Fed […]

Are you better off than you were a year ago? 28 States Say No.

The WSJ Economics Blog, discussing June 2010 unemployment rates by state, uses the headline “Most Regions Show Improvement“* I suppose we should be encouraged by the headline and not look at the text: Washington, DC and 16 states recorded jobless rates in excess of 10%. North and South Dakota continued to have the lowest rates […]

What You Measure is What You Try to Manage, FRB edition

For those who were thrilled by the positive general prospects in Rebecca’s post, the WSJ presents words to die/foreclose by: If that seems at odds with the economy’s recent strength, keep in mind that the unemployment rate is usually one of the last places recovery shows up. Many of us are having trouble forgetting that, […]

Bernanke Part 2 of 2: Leaders Lead, or Just Say No

The world would be a much better place if people had listened to Tom last August: Now some elite opinion favors Ben Bernanke’s reappointment, but politicians are irritated over Fed stonewalling of bailout oversight and others (e.g. Dean Baker) point out that Ben Bernanke who put the Fed throttles to the firewall to save the […]

Bernanke Interlude

Via David Wessel’s Twitter feed, the WSJ publishes a letter: Ben Bernanke is a good person, a fine academic and a well-respected professor. But those traits have no bearing on whether he should be reconfirmed as Federal Reserve chairman…. Applying accountability principles, there’s no way Chairman Bernanke should be reconfirmed by the Senate, let alone […]

Today in "Economists Are NOT Totally Clueless" (Part 1 of 2 or 3)

The WSJ collects reactions to the release of the latest Case-Shiller index. Let’s look at two, just for fun: One in four mortgages are currently underwater. Foreclosure and delinquency rates, which hit a record high at the end of the third quarter of 2009, are therefore likely to continue to rise, perhaps sharply. In addition […]