Rules of the market is the mantra I have always advocated, rather than lumping everything together as ‘free’. Cost reduction was the key benefit claimed by privatization. We conduct a…

…decades in the name of free markets and financial innovation. Your predecessors on the Senate Banking Committee, in the celebrated Pecora Hearings of 1933 and 1934, laid the groundwork for…

…talk about national house prices, as housing markets are quintessentially local. Looking at individual markets, it seems that prices in some continued to boom. But those markets that were the…

……Among other indicators, the significant rise in purchases of homes for investment since 2001 seems to have charged some regional markets with speculative fervor. The apparent froth in housing markets…

…how ever-rising marginal tax rates lead to tighter labor markets, reductions in productivity, and declines in reported income. Let us forget in their entirety the issues of tax revenue and…

Kash discussed the recent good news on compensation last Thursday and the lackluster increase in payroll employment on Friday. Kevin Drum noted how one story thought higher compensation wasn’t good…

Uggabugga’s got the details. In fact, the market seems to already be exacting a price for SBGI’s nonsense — this plan may not make it past the shareholders. AB UPDATE:…

…in China. The problem with these rationalizations is that all of these things were well understood by markets — and have been for some time. None are surprises, and none…

…that it is now raising them are a bit hypocritical (but see here). Second, blaming the Fed for not being a team player as the emerging markets were when they…

…of Macro Financial Linkages in Emerging Markets that capital flows can exacerbate prevailing economic trends. Relatively large capital inflows to emerging markets (“surges”) tend to take the form of bank…