The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. – F.A. Hayek
Posted in Corporatism, Money on Mar 13th, 2009
“whatever advantages are to be derived from banking operations all citizens would be free to enjoy alike … the system is odious to the free spirit of our civil institutions … and detrimental to sound banking because confidence supposedly induced by the supposed sanctity of charter, enables the unworthy and dishonest managers of a bank’s [...]
Posted in Macroeconomics on Mar 13th, 2009
The economic literature continues to produce work that questions how realistic the Obama stimulus projections are: Renewed interest in fiscal policy has increased the use of quantitative models to evaluate policy. Because of modelling uncertainty, it is essential that policy evaluations be robust to alternative assumptions. We find that models currently being used in practice [...]
Posted in Flotsam and Jetsam on Mar 12th, 2009
Maybe this guy thought he was going to get some real change.
Posted in Behavior on Mar 12th, 2009
Investigators are still undertaking the daunting task of unraveling how he pulled off the fraud for decades without being caught. Read the rest.
Posted in Money on Mar 12th, 2009
And let’s guess which Administration allowed this to happen: Pass a law that allows out-of-state bank holding companies to acquire banks in any state Pass a law allowing banks to branch across state lines, and legally allow them to consolidate holding companies into one (in order to save on legal and regulatory costs) Allows individual [...]
Posted in Economics Problems on Mar 11th, 2009
Harvard economics Professor Greg Mankiw thinks that Mr. Obama’s growth forecasts are overly optimistic and that the federal deficit will be a lot larger than Mr. Obama thinks. He was chastised by Princeton’s Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, who on his New York Times blog claims that Mankiw can only make the [...]
Posted in You Can't Have it Both Ways on Mar 11th, 2009
From a 1999 New York Times Article: Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits. … ”Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership [...]
Posted in Education on Mar 10th, 2009
It is by now no secret that lots of Harvard faculty ended up in the Administration. As sad as it is, I actually find this story funny and ironic: “Harvard is Rich, so no layoffs.“
Posted in Environment, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Mar 10th, 2009
Proponents of doing something about global warming are proposing moderate policies (viz the IPCC “midrange” estimates about what we need to do) to mitigate warming. In order to have any meaningful impact on the trend of global temperatures, world economic activity would need to be slowed by about 1.7 percent per year for the next [...]
Posted in Corporatism, Education on Mar 9th, 2009
Via Warren Meyer: Lockheed Martin, the top recipient of military contracts most years, spent more on politics than any other defense firm in the 2008 elections. They still spent less than the American Federation of Teachers, which shelled out $2.8 million in the last cycle-with nearly every AFT dime going to Democrats. The top two [...]
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