Thursday, March 29, 2012

Mr DeMarco, Would you consider a debt-equity swap?

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From Bloomberg : The U.S. government has spent $190 billion to shore up the companies since they were taken into federal conservatorship ...
10 comments:
Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Andrew Zimbalist on Frank McCourt's sale of the Dodgers

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From ESPN : "It's problematic," Zimbalist said. "He was looking for some kind of ongoing income stream and he got it. ...
4 comments:

A poignant moment from a poor country

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The laundry here "ruined" a couple of my shirts--whoever ironed tore the collars a bit from the bodies of the shirts. Being an Ame...
Tuesday, March 27, 2012

When liberals undermine liberalism

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I consider myself a liberal.  On social issues, I am very liberal; on economic issues, while in general I like markets, I think governments ...
Saturday, March 24, 2012

Mark Twain on Monetary Policy (h/t Patricia Harris)

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First published in 1879 as "Mark Twain as a Presidential Candidate." My financial views are of the most decided character, but...
Monday, March 19, 2012

New data since I posted yesterday

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From this morning's Economic Times ( one of India's leading newspapers). NEW DELHI: The number of India's poor fell to 29.8% o...
Sunday, March 18, 2012

What would Rawls say?

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Since India liberalized its economy in 1991 , PPP GDP per capita has increased from about 1400 in 1992 to about 3200 in 2009 (see Penn Wor...
6 comments:
Saturday, March 17, 2012

Rail transit and what is physically possible

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I have written posts in the past that reflect my admiration for John Kain's work in transportation economics.  He is known, among other ...
3 comments:
Wednesday, March 14, 2012

"Green Jobs" will be real, but invisible

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John Whitehead quotes Joe Romm : Last week economist William Nordhaus  slammed global warming deniers and explained that the cost of delayi...
1 comment:
Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Why owning a house may not be the American Dream

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Lots of societies outside of America seem to have a preference for home-ownership. I have spoken to policy makers and scholars in several co...
1 comment:
Sunday, March 11, 2012

Who are you going to hug?

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As I watch the ridiculous controversy over Barack Obama's hugging Derrick Bell , I can't help but think that if only people who agre...
1 comment:
Friday, March 09, 2012

Banks seem to be lending

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The Flow of Funds data for the fourth quarter of 2011 is out .  Total net lending by commercial banks and savings institutions has been soli...
1 comment:

Eduardo Porter reminds me of a favorite Joan Robinson quote

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...the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all.  From Economic Philosophy. ...
1 comment:
Thursday, March 08, 2012

James Q. Wilson the teacher

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The past few days have brought encomiums to and reflections of the work and life of James Q. Wilson (see here for example ). But I have yet ...
1 comment:
Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Not sure when it will pop, but it must be a bubble

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Rental yields on housing in India are now at times less than one percent in some large cities; people have been saying to me "it's ...
2 comments:
Monday, March 05, 2012

A nice sentence by Peter King of Sports Illustrated

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Peter King is, by far, my favorite football writer.  But I liked this non-football related gem today: Dick Ebersol has urged me not to me...

The wonders of great design

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I am making my annual visit to the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad (I will report on rent data collected by students here in a couple...
11 comments:
Monday, February 27, 2012

Feroli, Harris, Sufi and West on Housing and the Transmission of Monetary Policy

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I will share a link when I find one.  Let me pull out a couple of paragraphs from the executive summary: In this report, we focus on weak...
6 comments:
Saturday, February 25, 2012

Still playing consumers for suckers

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So I am having a lazy Saturday watching ESPN, and see an ad where the husband says, "I need the TV," and the wife says, "We c...
2 comments:
Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Matthew Yglesias says low income people face lower inflation

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More specifically, he writes : At the same time, it’s worth noting that stagnating real working-class wages are calculated by using a mean...