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

Disappearing inconvenient data

Via Barry Rithotz at The Big Picture comes Bruce Bartlett’s take on : Bruce Bartlett and the dangers of Republican know-nothingism  Bruce Bartlett goes off on some of the denialist behavior from the GOP. Bartlett writes: When a study doesn’t support their dogma, the GOP censors it: Nonpartisan Tax Report Withdrawn After G.O.P. Protest Original study […]

It is in the interests of bankers and landlords to masquerade as capitalists

An comment worth noting on an  interesting post Where Are You in the Economic Strata? by Barry Ritholtz is the following (hat tip Mike K.): In my opinion, aspirational voting is the consequence of a rationaldedication to ethics based upon false assumptions of what is ethical.As I see it, there are two forms of income. The first […]

And So Happy Xmas…Now with Canadian Content

A couple of days ago, James Bianco, chez Ritholtz, noted a WSJ article entitled “Dividend Stocks Become the Heroes”: This year, the 100 stocks in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index with the highest dividend yields are up an average of 3.7% before dividend payouts, according to Birinyi Associates. The 100 lowest-yielding stocks are down […]

Hank Paulson and Some Animals Are More Equal than Others

byMike Kimel Barry Ritholtz points us to a Bloomberg article showing, once again, that when it came to measures to prop up the economy in 2008, some animals are more equal than others: Paulson explained that under this scenario, the common stock of the two government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs, would be effectively wiped out. So […]

Spot Effing On, as The Mainstreamers Edge Leftward

We have just printed the eleventh (11th) straight week in which new jobless claims have exceeded 400,000 people. As Krugman notes, “The Fed predicts disastrously high unemployment as far as the eye can see(pdf) [a]nd, in response to this dire prospect, it declares its work done.” So this it is almost palliative that Barry Ritholtz […]

David Streitfeld Knows Better than This

The NYT moves deeply into delusion: The rolling real estate crash that ravaged Florida and the Southwest is delivering a new wave of distress to communities once thought to be immune— economically diversified cities where the boom was relatively restrained. In the last year, home prices in Seattle had a bigger decline than in Las […]

The Meaning of "Monty Python and the Meaning of Life"

Robert Waldmann Barry Ritholtz argues that the problem with mortgages was underwriting standards and not securitization. He appeals to the very great authority of Monty Python. Click the link. Ritholtz seems not to be familiar with this new idea in economic theory called “Nash equilibrium”. Over -rated yes. Totally irrelevant not so much. One can […]