The headlines and theme were what they needed to be - “Bernanke: Fed will take action if economy falters.” (from Yahoo.com) “Bernanke Says Fed Stands Ready to Support Recovery.” (from the Wall Street Journal) “Bernanke outlines three options for additional economic stimulus.” (from HousingWire) The result is a nice little boost in the trading markets… [Read more…]
July 29, 2010
Good news – monkeys would have taken option ARM and pay-as-you go mortgages too: http://www.ted.com/talks/laurie_santos.html For more about Human Irrationality, check out Dan Ariely’s blog and his book – Predictably Irrational.
July 27, 2010
Many thanks to Greg Mankiw for posting the link on his blog to Robert Solow’s prepared statement to the House Committee on Science and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight – “Building a Science of Economics for the Real World.” I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was introduced to the field of… [Read more…]
July 21, 2010
Interesting article on Wired today – 5 Things That Could Topple Facebook’s Empire. It’s fun and easy to create this lists – 5 things that…, 10 things that… – but thought-provoking nonetheless. Terms on a patent are 20 years, but businesses of the Facebook sort are difficult to make patentable, let alone enforce any legal… [Read more…]
July 19, 2010
How humans’ ability to conceptualize and capitalize on gains from trade leads to economic and societal progress: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_sex.html Ridley references one of my favorite economics lessons from Uncle Milty – The Story of the Pencil – though he fails to cite Milton Friedman on the idea… Found that rather disappointing. (Thanks to Paul Kedrosky’s blog… [Read more…]
April 19, 2010
Just finished reading “The Big Short” by Michael Lewis – a nice explanation of CDOs and their contribution to the housing bubble. Lewis takes a head-shaking-you-won’t-believe-this-happened viewpoint than Gregory Zuckerman’s “The Greatest Trade Ever.” (Zuckerman takes more of the holy-crap-you-won’t-believe-that-this-Paulson-guy-figured-out-the-trade! approach.) Lewis only mentions John Paulson and his hedge fund once in the entire book… [Read more…]
April 12, 2010
This showed up in my inbox this afternoon. Greetings from Southwest Airlines: I’m sorry that we were unable to get you to the terminal promptly and off the airplane quicker after your flight arrived at Denver on April 11. Unfortunately, your gate was occupied by another LUV jet that evening that was taking a little… [Read more…]
February 3, 2010
I was fortunate enough to attend the ASF 2010 Working Lunch, pretty good rubber chicken with a side of CNBC’s Larry Kudlow moderating between Howard Dean and Newt Gingrich. Much to my surprise, Howard Dean appeared to show signs of fiscal conservatism and the willingness to speak with candor and criticisum about the Obama administration.… [Read more…]
January 28, 2010
I got into a Facebook conversation yesterday about capitalism and greed, and immediately thought about this excerpt of the Phil Donahue show, interviewing Milton Friedman back in the 1970s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A And as is the beauty of YouTube, I also found this episode of the Charlie Rose show, taped just a day after Milton Friedman passed… [Read more…]
January 23, 2010
There’s a wonderful blog conversation ongoing between Paul Kedrosky and Fred Wilson on the optimal number of venture capital firms. To summarize, both advocate for a reduction in amount of capital and number of VC firms participating in the market. Check out Kedrosky’s post from this week – Fred Wilson and the Venture Capital (Non-)Cartel… [Read more…]
August 27, 2010
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