A while back I put together a rough calc estimating what our country’s “home-work” is worth as a share of GDP, based on the idea that such work is production, and that it has every bit as much value to our lives as work that we get paid for. By that estimate (based on the […]
by Linda Beale Calculating the Cost of Bailouts A recent New York Times includes a piece on the Treasury’s study of the various bailouts or “rescues” of distressed financial and other institutions. Gretchen Morgenson, Seeing Bailouts Through Rose-Colored Glasses, New York Times (May 19, 2012). The Treasury study, The Financial Crisis Response–in charts (April 13, […]
I’m not usually one to defend Facebook. Yes, I “use” it—it has more of my high school classmates as members than Classmates does—but it’s getting increasingly difficult to block Games from feeds, the adverts are cluttered, and the view doesn’t seem to optimise based on the screen I use. In short, it’s not trying too […]
If you’ve ever been involved in a legal contention, like a business or personal dispute or a contested divorce, you know that the whole game pivots, ultimately, on the potential end game: what would happen if the thing went to court — even if (even because) everyone involved knows that it never will. The fact […]
by Kenneth Thomas The poll results are in on whether Jamie Dimon will resign from the board of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. By a 53%-40% majority, with 7% unsure, readers thought that Dimon would not step down in the wake of the huge supervision failure at JP Morgan, which led to its $3 […]
I do not find event studies interesting or convincing. I consider them an example of Schizzo-finance in which the efficient markets hypothesis is switched on and off. The field embraced that hypothesis for a while and I don’t think people understand how often they rely on it. In an event study, the effect of a […]
Yves Smith posted a call to action. If you want this country to be different, you can’t just wish for it or expect voting to effect change. You need to be part of making it happen. And that was perhaps the greatest of Obama’s deceptions, that by listening to his seductive rhetoric, your passivity made […]
by Linda BealeEITC: Mulligan (economic theory) vs. Seto (empirical evidence) TaxProf today noted the article in the New York Times about the EITC: Casey Mulligan, Do Tax Credits Encourage Work? New York Times ( 2012). Mulligan, an econ prof at the University of Chicago (home, of course, to Milt Friedman’s “free” market theories) noted that […]
by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: Notes from the Conference World So in the past 10 days I have spoken to and with health care executives from 40 + states about their current view of the health care world. A few observations: Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), a keystone of Obamacare, are being viewed […]