Bailout

Gesture politics and the Fed mandate

Posted on November 17, 2010
The proposal from Bob Corker and Mike Pence to abolish the dual mandate is pure gesture politics.

Bailout economics

Posted on November 17, 2010
It's all about the bailouts today, as Warren Buffett contributes a thankyou-for-the-bailout op-ed to the NYT to run alongside the paper's reasonably comprehensive accounting of which bailout monies have been paid back, which might be, and which won't be.

QE2 and the undead homicidal zombie market

Posted on November 16, 2010
I know this blog has been way too heavy on the QE of late; apologies for that. But Baruch has a fantastic new post up, which nails what I'm really worried about when it comes to quantitative easing.

Felix TV: Why QE isn?t working

Posted on November 16, 2010
There are things which could go right with quantitative easing. But on the other hand, there are big things which could go wrong too.

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Who deserves the credit for GM?

Posted on November 16, 2010
Andrew Ross Sorkin loves private equity.

The rhetoric of tuition inflation

Posted on November 16, 2010
Let's say I earn $50,000 a year, and a widget costs $1,000. Then my pay goes up 3%, while the cost of the widget goes up 10% -- year after year. Would you say that the widget has been getting more affordable over time? Stanley Fish would.

The politics of QE2

Posted on November 16, 2010
Allan Sloan has a good point today: by implementing QE2, Ben Bernanke has become a politician.

Counterparties

Posted on November 16, 2010
Ryan Avent is excellent on the political economy of the deficit -- Economist

Counterparties

Posted on November 15, 2010
Time change. You lose, you gain. Then all at once the frozen hours melt out through the nervous system -- FT

The value of OpenTable

Posted on November 15, 2010
I'm a big fan of OpenTable as a service. I've made 60 OpenTable reservations in total, using both the website and their iPhone app, and I haven't had a single bad experience: the resy has never been lost, I've never had an inordinate wait for a table, and it's extremely easy to share the reservation information with my fellow diners.

Video: Ben Bernanke, bubble blower

Posted on November 15, 2010
Ben Bernanke is blowing bubbles, but it's his only hope.

The case against QE

Posted on November 15, 2010
An impressive group of right-leaning technocrats has signed an open letter to Ben Bernanke, objecting to his adoption of QE2. And it's hard to disagree with what they have to say:

The bizarre decision to kill Newsweek.com

Posted on November 15, 2010
Mark Coatney has joined at least one Newsweek.com staffer in presenting a very cogent case for saving Newsweek.com on Tumblr.

Is QE2 already working?

Posted on November 15, 2010
Bloomberg's Liz McCormick has an interesting take on QE: "Options Showing Quantitative Easing Working Before It Begins" is the headline on her piece, which concentrates on an obscure indicator known as "payer skew".

Re-examining the mortgage interest deduction

Posted on November 14, 2010
One of the positive effects of the deficit commission report is the way that it has brought the stupid mortgage-interest exemption back into the spotlight.

Lies and auction hammer prices

Posted on November 14, 2010
The NYT has erred in the past, but generally it's good about reporting prices paid at auction: the amount that the winning bidder pays for the item in question is the amount that the item sold for.

The NYT?s attempt to fix the budget

Posted on November 14, 2010
In the wake of his excellent rent-vs-buy calculator, David Leonhardt has helped create another interactive tool, this one called "You Fix the Budget". He writes:

Counterparties

Posted on November 12, 2010
The courtship is over. Daily Beast, Newsweek to Wed -- TDB

When Google gets into a bidding war for its own talent

Posted on November 12, 2010
Google's decision to pay its employees more seems at odds with a reported pay raise that went to an engineer who threatened to leave for Google.

Treasury answers your tax questions

Posted on November 12, 2010
I love the way that Michael Mundaca, the assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy, has taken to the blogs to help up some of the perennial confusion surrounding taxes. And yes, he tackles the biggest question of all, about those 1099s:

Eat your heart out Matt Taibbi

Posted on November 12, 2010
This is without a doubt the funniest video ever made about the Fed, quantitative easing, and Ben Bernanke. Make sure you're in a place where you can laugh freely, and press play:

Give teens bank accounts, not prepaid cards

Posted on November 12, 2010
Dan Kadlec is right to give short shrift to the horribly misconceived Kardashian Kard, a prepaid debit card aimed at teenagers. But I think he?s too kind about prepaid debit cards in general:

If websites don?t cannibalize, how about apps?

Posted on November 12, 2010
James Murdoch seems to have decided that free websites might not really cannibalize newspapers after all:

Looking at the deficit commission?s tax plans

Posted on November 12, 2010
  The WSJ does none of its readers any favors with its silly headline attempting to sum up the effects of the deficit commissions tax proposals.

Counterparties

Posted on November 11, 2010
Wherein Andrew Ross Sorkin calls Dealbook a "real-time SWAT team", while driving his car to Fort Wayne -- TBN

The NYT?s subscription strategy

Posted on November 11, 2010
The New York Times deliberately withholds from subscribers exactly how much they pay for the paper.

Pandit?s parallel universe of gabfests

Posted on November 11, 2010
Is Vikram Pandit going to go back to Davos in January? He certainly seems to enjoy himself at well-meaning technocratic gabfests:

Medicare and the deficit

Posted on November 11, 2010
The most clear-eyed view of the silliness of the deficit commission report comes from Kevin Drum, who points out that at heart it says much less about reducing the size of the deficit than it does about reducing the size of the government.

When bankers make windfall profits from the FDIC

Posted on November 11, 2010
Elizabeth Warren has been doing the rounds in recent days, extolling the virtues of small community banks and talking about how tough it is for them to compete with the big guys.

Counterparties

Posted on November 10, 2010
David Leonhardt smacks around the gold bugs -- NYT

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