cross posted from ataxingmatter Madoff’s ponzi scheme tax losses and union workers’ home losses Wall Street has not had a good year (and of course, the taxpayers have borne the brunt of the resulting chaos). Credit default swaps, for several years the darlings of the industry, have become a giant albatross around taxpayers’ necks, especially […]
by cactus Ignorant Decision Makers in the Public Sector, Ignorant Decision Makers in the Private Sector I once had a rant about attorneys. I noted: I remember something my father, a physicist, once said about Bill Richardson when Richardson was Secretary of Energy. My father doubted that Richardson could come up with a reasonable definition […]
rdan Wallet Pop points to a game at the Economist that takes work to put together from pdfs. Update: The picture is from the Economist and is as big as it is going to get.Update 2: Go to the bottom of the Economist page for two pdf links for an enlarged picture and printout
lifted from Robert’s Stochastic thoughts: David Rose has an important article in Vanity Fair about Torture He argues, at very convincing length with extensive specific evidence, that statements extracted by torture are completely unreliable — what the tortured person thinks the torturers want to hear. He definitely claims that José Padilla’s alleged dirty bomb plot […]
rdan Not forgotten, but set aside as a national concern. And many still do not know how the water gets to their faucet (for real, not a generic idea), and selling water rights goes on. We will be ‘surprised’ and ‘no one saw it coming’ comments will fill our ears. Loss of water comes in […]
sent by David Zetland The Bailout Explained Young Chuck in Montana bought a horse from a farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the horse the next day. The next day he drove up and said, “Sorry son, but I have some bad news, the horse died.” Chuck replied, “Well, then just give me […]
Robert Waldmann You knew it was coming. Hedge funds are getting public help too. I’m not waiting for people who argued against regulation on the grounds that hedge funds are lightly regulated (except for the little rule that they can only take money in chunks of 100 million) and doing fine to uhm revise their […]
rdan(h/t reader mcwop) Clusterstock points a how to handle bonuses in an interesting way. We’re shocked that nobody has suggested this before, but on its face this looks like a great idea… Credit Suisse announced today that bonuses for its top executives would be made in illiquid, mortgage-backed securities. Seeing as these guys are responsible […]
Ken Houghton We’re off for two weeks in a foreign country, and internet access may be limited in the Great State of New Jersey, so—just in case in can’t find a way to pity sadly the University of Chicago’s Business School curriculum (yes, there’s an is-McMegan-is-being-obtuse-or-is-she-stupid post someone has to write; I’ll trust that someone […]
I’m staring at my car, which survived the past six NJ winters without looking much the worse for wear. At least compared to today. Data research question of the Day: Any way to get data on the number of car washes done in the winter in, say, the latitude of the lower Rustbelt over the […]