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

Angry Bear contributor now at Economonitor

Angry Bear contributor Rebecca Wilder has begun writing her own column, The Wilder View, at the internationally prestigious Economonitor (Nouriel Roubini). The Wilder View at Economonitor Europe: Why the One-Size-Fits-All Solution Won’t Work and Linking sovereign risk to corporate credit spreads in Europe …and is interviewed and quoted by Floyd Norris in the New York […]

In Other News, 90% of VeloNews Readers Consider Themselves Above-Average Cyclist

Floyd Norris discovers a mathematical impossibility: Asked to rank, on a scale of one (excellent) to five (poor), the ability of their board’s compensation committee to “effectively manage C.E.O. compensation, 83 percent of the directors chose one or two, and only 4 percent picked four or five. But asked, “In general, do you believe U.S. […]

Seasonal Posting: NYTFail, Part 2

First, David Leonhardt argued that this recession was good for workers. Now, Floyd Norris apparently has decided to mix and match data. (I wonder if the fact many NYT employees who are looking at their 45-day severance offers is having an effect on its economic coverage.) One of the standard “economist jokes” is about the […]

NBER generally gets it right

Brad DeLong suggested a bit before the U.S. election that there was virtually no non-political reason for NBER not to admit the United States was in a recession.* A little late, but they generally got it right. As Floyd Norris notes: The National Bureau of Economic Research said today that the current recession began a […]

Floyd Norris points out another reason the bailout will not work

Take a page from Douglas North et al., I will simply note that if the institutions charged with managing the process are corrupt, the chance of success approaches zero. Case in point, Christopher Cox (R-BoughtAndPaid) and the SEC: The interesting thing here is that we have already heard that the S.E.C. staff almost immediately demanded […]