In These Times Grupo Santander, the global banking giant, last year took control of Sovereign Bank. The largest bank in the Euro-zone, where it is based, Santander is the world’s eighth largest banking company by market capitalization. While the company is very good at generating profits around the world (it’s the world’s fourth largest bank […]
Spanning the period April 14, 2010 to June 7, 2010, the euro lost 12.5% in value against the $US (this is not a trade-weighted measure of the currency value, but it’ll do). As the currency tumbled, Q2 nominal export income grew quickly over the quarter for the top 5 economies in the Eurozone: Germany, 6% […]
This needs to be screamed far and wide from the highest mountain to the deepest sea, at the top of one’s lungs: There is no reason to think that the bulk of current unemployment is any sense “structural”: if aggregate demand were higher it would melt away just as unemployment in 1982 melted away. The […]
Robert Waldmann I’m not sure if I should post this here. I think it might be stimulating. However, I am ignorant and have no intention of learning (except from comments). I feel free to display my ignorance after the jump. The conventional wisdom seems to be that we have to do something about the long […]
Robert Waldmann Jonathan FBD Weisman strikes again. I blame Kevin Drum for the fact that I read a grossly dishonest article of his in the Wall Street Journal. The article is about public attitudes on the deficit and on proposed solutions. As a normal journalist, Weisman stresses anecdotes and only briefly mentions polling data. I […]
by: Daniel BeckerThis is just a little something toward the “get to know your blogger” department of AB. It’s just in case anyone thinks that we have no real life. Besides the 2 businesses, dealing with long term care issues for both parents (not even on the list of issues for this nation) and stimulating the economy by […]
Federal Register Improved version 2.0 is now available for use, and includes on some items a link to the that particular item that is open to comments at Regulations.gov.
I keep being told that the lower personal tax rates lead to greater business investments, especially by small businessmen that are not incorporated, those that flow their business income into their personal accounts so they are subject to the personal tax rates rather than the corporate tax code. Numerous, sophisticated econometric exist that conclude that […]
The lower the fee, the more money raised by the IPO that actually goes to pay back the taxpayer. Doesn’t change that Michael Moore’s analysis of GM is likely much more true than not (especially the likely reasons for the abrupt sidelining of Ed Whitacre), but every little bit helps. In related news, it’s Economists […]
Robert Waldmann This article by David Hilzenrath in the Washington Post is interesting. The news is that an internal inspection for Transocean use reported that some equipment (two cranes) had to be replaced and could not be used, but the official inspection outsourced to a private firm, concluded that everything was fine (this is the […]