A boom in shale gas? Credit the feds. By Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus (hat tip to Barry Ritholtz) Since the high-profile bankruptcy of Solyndra, the solar company that received $535 million in federal loan guarantees, many have concluded that government efforts to promote energy technologies are doomed to fail. Critics cite the abandoned synthetic […]
by Rebecca Wilder The Broad Sovereign Downgrade Recently I’ve spent time thinking about global bond investors, especially those conservative investors that stick with the high-quality sovereigns. I’ve got news for them: the share of high-quality investment grade sovereigns – BBB- and above is investment grade – is shrinking. Some bullet points comparing ratings in December 2007 […]
by Linda Beale Madoff and Mankiw and Inequality–the corporatist ideology at work There are two letters to the editor in the Times today that are worth noting–as usual, the ‘real’ analysis is hidden in the interior pages, positioned next to a huge ad (for an investment adviser, no less).Chris Cannon from San Francisco notes […]
Real Reasons Bankers Don’t Like Basel’s Rules: Clive Crook – Bloomberg. Why bankers’ whining about higher equity requirements is just that: A much-cited paper by Stanford’s Anat Admati and colleagues — “Fallacies, Irrelevant Facts, and Myths in the Discussion of Capital Regulation: Why Bank Equity Is Not Expensive” — should have ended this debate once […]
I’ve gone on about this elsewhere, but thought I should bring it up front and center here. While everyone hyperventilates about government debt, they don’t seem to be aware of the massively greater load of private debt, and its spectacular runup compared to government debt: This from Steve Keen’s latest. (It’s not very long. There […]
by Mike Kimel A Modest Forecast: The Average Real Growth in Ireland will Exceed 10% a Year From 2012 to 2014 You read the title correctly: the Irish economy will grow by more than 10% next year. Now, hearing that, you might be asking yourself: “Is this guy for real? He must be nuts.” Because […]
I’m stealing this headline directly from Sandwichman. He sez: No it doesn’t. It almost never is. To pay back government debt, you have to run a budget surplus, and while there may be modest surpluses from time to time, they don’t add up to more than a minuscule fraction of all the accumulated debt. But […]
My Economics Professor in MBA School, Peter Klein, lectured fondly of the Indian (as in subcontinent, not AmerInd) “entrepreneurs” who risked life and limb going through rubbish heaps looking for scrap metal and other items that could be sold. Despite the risk—I’m not writing metaphorically when I say “risked life and limb”—it was the best […]
In the midst of an essay on Louis C.K., Bob Lefsetz (chez Ritholtz) explains what the Lemieuxes and (now, sadly) Mannions of the world keep ignoring: One of the reasons artists have lost power is they no longer lead.It’s kind of like our President. He’s so busy appeasing people thateven his natural constituency is turned […]
A couple of our gentle Bears have suggested that I repost this over here. Ask and ye shall receive. It’s a good complement to and demonstration of the point I tried to make in my last post. From Mike Konczal: Their model is obviously telling them that whatever (non-)actions they’re taking at the moment will solve […]