Somewhere in the World There Must Be Someone Who Understands the Unemployment Insurance Seasonal Adjustment Factor But it sure ain’t me: Looking at this time series, the seasonal adjustment does look a little crazy, but I promise– it’s not that bad. Let’s go to the ten-year: So, yes, that spike looks huge, but historically, it’s [...]
From Steve Levitt: “The other day I was walking through the halls of the University of Chicago economics department and heard a faculty member say that the right rule of thumb for government spending is that it is worth only 10 cents on the dollar because of inefficiency.” I’m open to suggestions as to what [...]
I love XKCD.
I ran across this post over the weekend, and found it to be disappointing, simply because the writer chose to spin and distort someone else’s words, rather than deal with the validity of his target’s assertions. From the post: Questioned yesterday at an AEI-sponsored discussion of green jobs, Smith admitted that her modeling actually shows that even [...]
From an article by Andrei Shleifer, emphasis mine: There is, however, a class of cases where the argument against government ownership is not as straightforward. In these cases, cost reductions for which private suppliers have stronger incentives have potentially deleterious effects on the non-contractible quality. For example, private prisons might abuse prisoners by hiring cheaper [...]
Tyler Cowen’s summary of Dr. Krugman’s work is, as usual, excellent. Congratulations, Dr. Krugman. Perhaps, given your work in international trade, international finance, and financial (specifically currency) crises, it’s not surprising that you’d be recognized during one of the largest international financial crises in history… particularly given that you’ve been sounding warning bells since several [...]
This week: the failure of the bailout. Possibly. If I had to bet at even odds, I’d bet against near-total seizure of global credit markets, but it’d be a closer call than I think I want to admit to myself. If it does fail, however, it’s likely to do so sooner rather than later, and [...]
This evening, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley both received approval from the Fed to convert from investment banks to bank holding companies. With this, the great majority of the US investment banking sector has effectively re-regulated itself. To quote Tyler Cowen, “Whew! I’m sure glad they repealed the Glass-Steagall Act.” The repeal of Glass-Steagall has [...]
From the WSJ: A Chaotic Sunday Opens Wall Street’s Week Moral Hazard’s Exit Leaves Investors To Sort Out the Mess By ANNELENA LOBB September 15, 2008; Page C1 Investors are going to be staring in the face of moral hazard when markets open Monday. The collapse of Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. coupled [...]