I was going to post something a couple of days ago on Greece’s derivatives deal, but knew I was missing a key piece. It became prominent yesterday, and Felix’s summary today gets it spot on: So while it’s entirely fair to blame Greece for trying to hide its debt, and to blame Eurostat for letting […]
Tamyra d’Ippolito has suddenly become a Very Important Person. She needs signatures primarily in Indian’s Eighth District (currently represented by Brad Ellsworth, who would be the Party’s pick to replace Evan Bayh), Evansville, and Terre Haute. She has a background to make a Tea Partier proud: I was born in Worthington, Indiana and raised in […]
Simon Johnson on the possible consequences of Goldman Going Greek. Economics of Contempt explains why economist John Cochrane should not be allowed to talk about finance. (Bonus coverage: EofC’s previous piece on John Taylor) Alea’s jck on how all the talk about risk management became mainstreamed.
If I’m reading this link from my usual news source correctly, Joseph Stiglitz’s new book Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy is being sold in France under the title Le triomphe de la cupidité (The Triumph of Greed). The sole B&N customer review so far is a confused jumble: If […]
I had an informal discussion with a manager in an MBS IT area last month. Just a general conversation about the field and the data people check. He mentioned FICO scores and I noted that I’m not fond of using them to evaluate a mortgage, especially for first-time homebuyers. Part of this is simple: it’s […]
Brad DeLong’s famous rule (Originally: “If you think Paul Krugman must be wrong, you severely overestimated Niall Ferguson“) needs a corollary. If Olivier Blanchard says your macroeconomic policy doesn’t work, and that you should double your inflation target to make it reasonable, it’s worth trying: The International Monetary Fund’s top economist, Olivier Blanchard, says central […]
UPDATE III: The Daniel Kaufmann of the Kaufmann Governance Institute lays out the details: This misses another huge challenge altogether, totally absent in the reporting by the New York Times and other main outlets: Amy Bishop had walked into the Faculty meeting, and sat quietly for a long while during its proceedings, with a fully […]
Michael Swanwick explains how a monopoly can destroy itself: Nowadays, times are much easier but a lot scammier. Last week I had to buy a new palmbook/laptop. Which, I discovered on my first and only day of possession, was preloaded with Windows 7 Starter, a not-fully-functional OS. When I tried to change the image on […]
Chris Christie moves New Jersey into the 17th century: Christie is cutting $475 million in aid to school districts, $62 million in aid to colleges and $12 million to hospital charity care. He is pulling all funding from the department of Public Advocate….He is cutting state subsidies for NJ Transit, a move Christie said could […]
David Wessel goes to a familiar source: One big reason is that his efforts have made borrowing easy for big companies, those that can sell bonds, but not for consumers or smaller firms that rely on banks to borrow. “If you’re a large corporation relying on capital markets, the Fed and Treasury saved you,” says […]