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

Transparency Liquidity

Felix Salmon is a very smart person who writes very well. Also he once invited me to an instant messenger debate that he posted on his high traffic blog. So I’d like to make only polite criticisms. However, I can’t write well so I will please translate the following to polite in your heads. Salmon […]

Obamanation

Robert Waldmann To obamanate V. To open an argument absurdly excessive concessions to one’s opponents. Obamanation gerund of To obamanate.Obamanation present participle of to obamanate. I offer this definition in defense of Obama. The word will be defined, and he’d better hope my definition is adopted.

EMPLOYMENT REPORT

Except for the drop in the workweek and aggregrate hours worked the February employment report was almost a duplicate of the January employment report. In both January and February the payroll survey reported a slight drop in employment and the household survey showed a modest increase in employment. Essentially both reports are showing changes so […]

Why China may have slowed Treasury purchases

by Bruce Webb There has been a scattering of stories about how China has slowed or stopped buying U.S. Treasuries. This story offers a possible explanation LA Times: China’s investments in U.S. up sharply Beijing is using its accumulation of billions of American dollars to step up its investments around the globe. In the last […]

Fed policy: complicating an already complicated situation

by Rebecca Wilder The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is making tough decisions right now. Its mandate, “to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates”, is a seriously tall order given current economic conditions. The unemployment rate sits at 9.7%, while prices have bounced back to 2.6% Y/Y […]

Why does IQ halve when people write about IQ

Robert Waldmann So it turns out that extreme liberals have higher measured IQs than extreme conservatives and atheists have slightly higher IQs than biblical literalists. What does this tell us ? Matthew Yglesias sent me to this and I learned that people will not accept the fact that not all stochastic variables are normally distributed. […]

Spurious Correlation of the Day

Correlation is not causation, more research and testing is required, etc. I was working from the concept that home Internet service is a luxury item—or, at the very least, non-essential.*  In short, that you would tend to give up home Internet access if the choice is between that and staying current on your mortgage. Looking […]