I am enjoying the goings-on in Dubai tremendously. It’s like the field mouse of an economics drug trial: take every extreme symptom, jam it into one place of absolutely no global consequence, and then try to figure out the cure. Suppose you had a tiny country that decided it wanted to be important. Playing on [...]
Archive for November, 2009
Vegas, With Real Gambling
Posted in Architecture, Corruption, Foreigners, Housing Crisis, Meltdown, Middle East, Obama, Tim Geithner on November 30, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Picking Fights
Posted in Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Miscellaneous on November 24, 2009 | 2 Comments »
I’m a little surprised to see this: Wal-Mart, the mightiest retail giant in history, may have met its own worthy adversary: Amazon.com. In what is emerging as one of the main story lines of the 2009 post-recession shopping season, the two heavyweight retailers are waging an online price war that is spreading through product areas [...]
Letting the Door Hit You
Posted in Foreigners, Health Care, Immigration, Labor Policy on November 23, 2009 | 1 Comment »
For years we have been subjected to odd debates about whether the government should permit, encourage, or attempt to prevent the reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada. Seniors love it; they want to be able to drive across the border and save money. The drug companies hate it; they want to charge American prices. That [...]
MR. GO
Posted in Corruption, Industrial Policy, John McCain, Labor Policy, Obama, Transportation Policy on November 19, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Now here’s an interesting verdict that doesn’t seem to get much press: In a ruling that could leave the government open to billions of dollars in claims from Hurricane Katrina victims, a federal judge said late Wednesday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had displayed “gross negligence” in failing to maintain a navigation channel [...]
Couple of Blog Links
Posted in China, Corruption, Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Meltdown, Obama on November 17, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Short post to follow up on two things that were on Baseline recently. First of all, take James’ advice and check out this Interfluidity post: An enduring truth about financial regulation is this: Given the discretion to do so, financial regulators will always do the wrong thing. Steve touches on several of the themes I [...]
Control of the Stakes
Posted in Obama, Rudy Giuliani, War on Terror on November 16, 2009 | 7 Comments »
I am a huge fan of going for it on fourth down. The odds are typically on your side, and the main reason coaches don’t do it is that failure is so much more evident than success. Well, here goes the second-guessing: All sorts of things went wrong to get the Pats to this position [...]
As Night Follows Day
Posted in Housing Crisis, Housing Policy on November 13, 2009 | 1 Comment »
If I may quote myself, from September 4: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Except the Bernanke/Summers/Geithner team, who seem to believe you try to dig your way through to the other side of the earth. Call it the Martingale Strategy of government finance. Like every other problem gambler, this team is [...]
Is This an Accident?
Posted in Ben Bernanke, George W. Bush, Meltdown, Tim Geithner on November 12, 2009 | 4 Comments »
In the category of a stopped clock being right twice a day, the Senate seems to have come up with a compelling piece of bank regulation. I don’t like its chances to get passed, but it would be great for the nation: WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats circulated a plan Tuesday that would impose sweeping curbs [...]
91 Years
Posted in China, Foreigners, France, Germany, Middle East, Military, Russia on November 11, 2009 | 4 Comments »
The First World War ended ninety-one years ago.
Policing the Police
Posted in Basketball, Corruption, Housing Policy, Labor Policy, Meltdown, Obama, Soccer on November 9, 2009 | 3 Comments »
James Kwak over at Baseline has an post about the accounting treatment of Bank of America and Fannie Mae; quoting John Hempton: If Bank of America were to provide at the same rate its quarterly losses would be 50-80 billion and it would be completely bereft of capital – it would be totally cactus. It [...]
