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Monday, July 26, 2010

The value of bloggers

Matthew Yglesias: Niall Ferguson Debates Himself - Grasping Reality with Both Hands

We need to learn more about dying

Hospice medical care for dying patients : The New Yorker: "The simple view is that medicine exists to fight death and disease, and that is, of course, its most basic task. Death is the enemy. But the enemy has superior forces. Eventually, it wins. And, in a war that you cannot win, you don’t want a general who fights to the point of total annihilation. You don’t want Custer. You want Robert E. Lee, someone who knew how to fight for territory when he could and how to surrender when he couldn’t, someone who understood that the damage is greatest if all you do is fight to the bitter end."

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Counterfactuals

Should have pushed for Miers.

Court Under Roberts Is Most Conservative in Decades - NYTimes.com: "Had his first nominee, the apparently less conservative Harriet E. Miers, not withdrawn after a rebellion from Mr. Bush’s conservative base, the nature of the Roberts court might have been entirely different."

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Fed Policy Options

FT Alphaville � El-Erian: What to expect from Bernanke’s report to congress: "the Fed has five broad (and not mutually exclusive) approaches available if it deems—and I suspect it is not ready to do so yet—that additional policy actions are needed: hyper time extend the “exceptionally low for an extended period” interest rate signal; push banks to lend more by cutting the interest it pays on reserves; directly extend loans to certain segments of the non-financial economy; resume asset purchases; and cap interest rates."

Some other views on the options:

Scott Sumner

Krugman

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-e-gagnon/time-for-a-monetary-boost_b_654944.html

7 minutes of fame

President Calls Shirley Sherrod | Talking Points Memo

what the fed can do

Economist's View: Am I Being Unfair to the Fed, or is the Fed Being Unfair to Those Who Need Its Help?

I could never reason out how a sewing machine worked. on Twitpic

I could never reason out how a sewing machine worked. on Twitpic

Institute for Advanced Studies In Culture: Publications - The Hedgehog Review

Institute for Advanced Studies In Culture: Publications - The Hedgehog Review

Friday, July 16, 2010

SEC Settlement with GS

This tarnishes not only Goldman but also Paulson. Paulson made money not only because he got the housing market right but also because he structured deals to maximize profits.

Is the SEC Settlement Really a Win for Goldman? � naked capitalism

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Its All Good!

Its All Good! | The Big Picture

Trade: Should America fear offshoring?

The problem is not China and exchange levels. It is infrastructure and education. Those two should be the only components of our industrial policy.


Trade: Should America fear offshoring? | The Economist: "It would be absurd to argue that the current system of international capital flows and trade is perfect, or even particularly good. It's far better than it has been in the past, but it is in need of major reform. But cutting off America's market to chase vanishing jobs and to shut-out the world's surplus is a dead end. The right strategy is to hang tough for now, and to set the stage for a more structurally sound economy tomorrow."

Monday, July 12, 2010

The Corporate Cash debate

Is the size of corporate cash holding a statement about final demand or a statement about political views of CEO's? Simple numbers provide fuel for political debate.


Corporate America’s Pile-O-Cash | The Big Picture

And who holds it. 

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

The Unknown Unknowns

The Gulf Oil Leak—Posner - The Becker-Posner Blog: "It would be nice to be able to draw up a complete list of disaster possibilities, rank them by expected cost, decide how much we want to spend on preventing each one, and proceed down the list until the total cost of prevention equals the total expected cost averted. But that isn't feasible. Many of the probabilities are unknown. The consequences are unknown. The costs of prevention and remediation are unknown"

Birth Death Adjustment of Job Numbers

A Dash of Insight: Reviewing John Mauldin on Employment and the Economy

It's the Politics Stupid


The only explanation why both Republican and democratic operatives are focusing on austerity measures instead of growing jobs.

Mayberry Machiavellis: Obama Political Team Handcuffing Recovery

Sunday, July 04, 2010

How Google Works | The Big Picture

How Google Works | The Big Picture

What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?

What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? - Grasping Reality with Both Hands: "What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelly to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour."

Saturday, July 03, 2010

How to Make an American Job

Andy Grove on the declining ability of American companies to create jobs in the U.S.

How to Make an American Job Before It's Too Late: Andy Grove - Bloomberg: "Today, manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is about 166,000 -- lower than it was before the first personal computer, the MITS Altair 2800, was assembled in 1975."

Foxconn alone has 250,000 employees.

And the counter argument from Bhagwati. And more specifically from Cowen.