by Robert Waldmann (Dan here…lightly edited for readability and Robert’s sense of humor)) House effects Noah Smith and Chris House are engaged in a stimulating blogospheric discussion. I am tempted to engage House in debate. I am not at all tempted to actually read his posts. Caveat Lector I will here dispute the part of […]

Elizabeth Warren proposes simple banking needs through the Post Office: According to a report put out this week by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Postal Service, about 68 million Americans — more than a quarter of all households — have no checking or savings account and are underserved by the […]

WEST PALM BEACH – Using a mix of jokes and drawing on his own experience, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito said Monday that being a judge at the nation’s top court is often not what it appears to be. “A lot of people, I think, have the impression that sitting on the bench […]

Across the Curve has a post about pressure to lower prices… The culprit is the weakness of labor’s income to bolster prices. So now many companies are maneuvering to do whatever to cut prices. The last half of 2013 made this clear. Yet, some companies are not going to be successful at this game. These […]

by Joseph P. Joyce (is a Professor of Economics at Wellesley College and the Faculty Director of the Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs ) Desperate Times, Desperate Measures The selloff of emerging market currencies and equities continued last week. A Bank of America report noted that investors withdrew $6.4 billion last week from emerging market stock funds, while bond investors […]

The stock market is going down and some say it is a correction, and that stocks will be back up in spring. Well, not so fast. There are concerns that the economy is genuinely slowing down. Here is a tweet from Edward Harrison… Lower equities, lower oil, lower copper, lower bond yields, flattening yield curve […]

The Agenda Project (which is behind Patriotic Millionaires, Top Wonks, and other progressive initiatives) is preparing an open letter supporting an increase in the minimum wage. They’re looking for more signatories. SMART CAPITALISTS FOR AMERICAN PROSPERITY Dear Mr. President and Honorable Members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, We are writing to ask you […]

Here are the press releases dutifully passed along by the Associated Press: HONOLULU (AP) – U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia will be teaching a class at the University of Hawaii law school. The university says Scalia’s guest lecture Monday at the William S. Richardson School of Law will be followed by brief remarks […]

Stocks were up a bit in the morning and when I just check now, wow, they have gone down quite a bit. Remember my post from a few weeks ago… Fun analogy for investing in stocks. I was giving warning.

There was an insightful article by Nelson Schwartz in the New York Times on how the hollowing out of the middle class is affecting business. He brought up some great points… “The post-recession reality is that the customer base for businesses that appeal to the middle class is shrinking as the top tier pulls even […]