I think there’s some validity to these concerns voiced by the head of Toyota: OSAKA, Japan (Reuters) – The outspoken chairman of Toyota Motor Corp. said on Wednesday he feared the possibility that U.S. policy could turn against Japanese auto makers if local giants such as GM and Ford were to collapse. “Many people say […]
Frum argues that Africa does not need financial assistance but might benefit from free trade within the Western Hemisphere: African aid relief is the same. Jeffrey Sachs may imagine that he knows how much it will cost to pull Africa from poverty, but almost nobody outside the UN apparatus and the world of pop culture […]
Via bgreer comes this Washington Post story: For the past three years, the Air Force has described its $30 billion proposal to convert passenger planes into military refueling tankers and lease them from Boeing Co. as an efficient way to obtain aircraft the military urgently needs. But a very different account of the deal is […]
Greenspan made some remarks about the Interest Rate Mystery during a conference yesterday in Beijing. Slightly disconcertingly, none of the prevailing theories as to why long-term rates are so low right now are convincing to him… so he’s left admitting that he doesn’t really have an explanation for it. The pronounced decline in U.S. Treasury […]
This question is not as easy to answer as it may first appear. In working on various posts last week I came across an apparent contradiction in the official data on compensation: some series show it rising in real terms, while others show it barely able to keep up with inflation. This discrepancy was also […]
Yale Economics Professor Dr. Shiller expressed concern on Friday that the bubble is spreading: “… the enthusiasm is infectious and it is starting to spread all over the place.” How widespread is the housing bubble? Looking at the OFHEO House Price Index data released last week: Click on graph for larger image. NOTE: The OFHEO […]
Christopher Cox (R-CA) represents the district where CalculatedRisk lives. I suspect both of us are mulling over whether he is the best choice to be the new SEC chairman. Robert Novak does not make a good case for this Presidential nomination. Just as gets the issues in the Andersen litigation wrong, he tries to make […]
Senator Feinstein described the role of the Senate in selecting judges on May 10, 2005, which included: In 1795, President George Washington nominated John Rutledge to be Chief Justice. Soon after his nomination, Rutledge assailed the newly negotiated and popular Jay Treaty with Britain. Even as Rutledge functioned as Acting Chief Justice, the Senate debated […]
Lawrence Lindsey wants the next assistant attorney general for antitrust to be an economist. Like Mark Thoma, I have a mixed reaction to this op-ed. Let’s start with this rightwing Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc canard: Two of the precipitating events for the NASDAQ bubble collapse in the spring of 2000 were the antitrust division’s […]
The debate between Brad DeLong and Andrew Samwick could be characterized as a question of how strong the labor market really is. Samwick argues that some ancillary statistics that the BLS reports about the strength of the labor market (e.g. the numbers of discouraged workers, and those who otherwise do not have jobs but would […]