Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

A Dramatic Reading of My Novel

Most of time when I write something, I sign it. A piece in the first Great American Baseball Stat Book. The first three editions of a book called Interest Rate Trends and Comparisons put out by the bank at which I worked in the late 1980s.* Review pieces in various publications. A piece in Institutional […]

A Case for Tighter Regulation of Hedge Funds

Robert Waldmann One of the puzzling aspects of the European debate over how to increase financial regulation after the crash was the idea that hedge funds should be regulated more. This is odd as they didn’t destabilize the system. I just assumed the Europeans can’t stand unregulated people making huge amounts of money. Now I […]

de novo

Economists View has a note on the evolving ideas of what ‘financial’ reform looks like in Congress. It looks like de novo is back, and it was Barney Frank who pulled it in the first place. (h/t run) it appears Rep Frank put de novo branch banking back into the House Bill (HR4173) which just […]

Debt vs Unfunded Liability: Entitlement Commission Bait and Switch

by Bruce Webb A bipartisan group of Senators is making a push to tie an increase in the debt ceiling to establishment of a Commission whose focus in on reducing the growth of entitlements. Now clearly Medicare spending growth at its current rate is not sustainable, which fact makes the current full-throated defense of that […]

Sit back and relax: the US and China, this is gonna take awhile

China exported its way to a $2 trillion dollar fortress of F/X reserves ($USD mostly), while the US borrowed its way into a hole deep enough to spark a vast global recession. Who’s to blame? Given the symbiotic relationship in the chart above, it’s hard to blame any one individual, group, or even country. But […]

Job Automation, Purchasing Power and Consumer Spending

by Martin Ford Job Automation, Purchasing Power and Consumer Spending I’ve had several recent posts here arguing that automation technology is likely to depress wages and lead to significant structural unemployment in the coming years. One of the most common criticisms of my argument is that I am “not thinking like an economist” and that […]