by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Federal Government Stupidity – Part 1Part 1 of an occasional series The “war on drugs” isn’t working so well. But fear not, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has a clever plan to stop the flow of illegal drugs. The DEA is harassing nursing home nurses who take oral narc orders […]
Which view of the stock market to you take? On the one hand there is the fundamental interest rate, inflation approach. It says that the market overreacted to the two shocks of Greece and Deepwater Horizon and is now cheap.The S&P 500 PE on trailing operating earnings is now 16.5, and according to the traditional […]
by Mike Kimel Economic Growth Rates, The President’s Party and the Party that Controls CongressCross-posted at the Presimetrics blog. This post looks at economic growth rates by President and party. However, it also looks at how that growth rate is affected by which party controls Congress. (This is a topic covered in a lot of […]
NY Post reports That White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel met Sunday night at the apartment of Jane Hartley and Ralph Schlosstein with Dem fund-raisers such as Orin Kramer, Stan Shuman, Roger Altman, Ann Hess, Robert Zimmerman, Pete Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney. Good grief. Pete Peterson a Dem fundraiser? Who is getting his […]
Robert Waldmann As he watches policy makers cry “fire fire” in Noah’s flood, Paul Krugman becomes almost shrill. He has a simple (rigorous) model which suggests more stimulus would be ideal and that, when in a liquidity trap, government spending should be set to give unemployment equal to the non accelerating rate of unemployment. In […]
Market Watch reports: Hewlett-Packard Co. on Tuesday said it will invest $1 billion to consolidate and automate its data centers, a move that will lead to the elimination of 9,000 jobs over a “multiyear” period. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based computer and printing giant /quotes/comstock/13*!hpq/quotes/nls/hpq (HPQ 45.59, +0.01, +0.02%) said annual savings in its enterprise-services division […]
by Mike Kimel First Chapter of Presimetrics Available for Download The table of contents, introduction, and chapter one of Presimetrics, a book I wrote with Michael Kanell of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, are available here. The inside pages have already gone to the publisher, and the whole book will be released on August 11. So… […]
Robert Waldmann Over at Firedoglake “Masaccio” has a very interesting report on a legal complaint by the estate of Lehman Brothers against J.P. Morgan. on September 9, 2008, JPMorgan insisted that Lehman sign further agreements, under which Lehman guaranteed all obligations of its subsidiaries, including obligations under derivatives, and lost the ability to access its […]
Robert Waldmann There seems to be a widespread view that the US experience with deregulation has been mixed. Financial deregulation was a disaster, but airline deregulation and telecoms deregulation were OK (except for how crowded airports are and irritating advertisements by competing phone companies). What is this “telecoms deregulation” of which you speak. I absolutely […]
I have been ‘doing’ the South Beach diet the last three weeks. It is quite amazing how sweet berries, and the occasional small slice of watermelon on this hoiliday week end, tastes. Much better than corn syrup.