I’ve been working on White Paper on Liquidity and the idea of a “market,” and plan to post some pieces of it here over the next week or so. But this is too good to pass up, and I’m late to the game as is. On 15 September, the CFTC and the SEC held a […]
One of the nice things about going to the Kauffman Foundation this year was meeting up again with Peter Klein of Organizations and Markets, who was my first economics professor.* (I liked him as soon as I found out one of his first publications dealt with “moral hazard” and the Designated Hitter.) Peter has a […]
How else to explain a 20% drop in prices since The Destruction of the Gulf of Mexico? Oil fell below $70 Monday, reaching a low of $69.27 before rebounding slightly…The turnaround has been sudden — oil hit an 18-month high of $87.15 a barrel during trading on May 3. The plunge in oil extended to […]
“Liquidity” is another magic word. I like it rather less than “friction.” In the debate on financial regulatory reform opponents of tight regulations use the word liquidity as a magic spell which, they hope, will make all inconvenient evidence and arguments go away (no links my claim is like saying the Sun emits light). The […]
If I’m reading this link from my usual news source correctly, Joseph Stiglitz’s new book Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy is being sold in France under the title Le triomphe de la cupidité (The Triumph of Greed). The sole B&N customer review so far is a confused jumble: If […]
Down here it’s just winners and losersAnd don’t get caught on the wrong side of that line This will be a long post. Even with all the pictures above the fold. It started with a finger exercise during my daughter’s swim team practice: Just in case you thought I was picking on The Big C […]
UPDATE: Dr. Black twists the knife. The Geithner Plan FAQ is worth reading; it’s a classic example of treating an incomplete market as if it were the entire market. And note that “skin in the game” is limited to a part of the local pool. Unfortunately, while Treasury plays in the wading pool, hedge funds […]
Robert Waldmann I’m not kidding. Someone in some thread said that he or she thought it would be great if I could give a simple intuitive explanation of Geanakoplos and Polemarchakis (1985). Also I would get an interesting perspective on the crisis if I could fly to the moon. I will try after the jump. […]
Duff and Phelps, which tends to be the rating agency you go to if S&P or Moody’s won’t rate you highly enough, provides a convenient evaluation table (p. 22 of this report) for the marvelous negotiating techniques and acquisition skills of the previous Administration. Since the current Administration is now threatening to continue with the […]
Floyd Norris throws up [at] the details. He is not alone. Anyone keeping money in the U.S. stock market from this point forward better have no choice.