Monthly Archives: August 2008

Why the Energy Crisis Won’t Solve Itself

Posted on August 5, 2008 by Felix

Will Wilkinson is optimistic about energy. Don’t worry about peak oil, he says: as oil prices rise, alternative energy sources will become more attractive, and eventually innovation and competition in the alternative-energy space will drive alternative-energy prices down below the … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Monday Edition

Posted on August 4, 2008 by Felix

Economist Rankings: On the Wu-index, Andrei Shleifer is clearly Top Dog, with 14 papers having at least 140 citations. Lucas, Barrow, and Bernanke are in joint second place, each with 12 papers having at least 120 citations. A Comparison of … Continue reading →

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Where’s Calomiris’s Paper?

Posted on August 4, 2008 by Felix

Charlie Calomiris and two co-authors have a piece in today’s Washington Post making an improbable case: Most Americans have not experienced any significant decline in the value of their homes — nor are they likely to. "In our research," they … Continue reading →

Posted in housing | 1 Comment

Jimmy Cayne’s Latest Own-Goal

Posted on August 4, 2008 by Felix

Jimmy Cayne has been speaking at length with Fortune’s William Cohan, and has now managed to tell his side of the story. No wonder people don’t like him much: he comes across really badly even here. After reading the piece, … Continue reading →

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How Risky is Venezuela’s Bank Nationalization?

Posted on August 4, 2008 by Felix

Hugo Chávez has done a lot of things to endanger the Venezuelan economy. But to read John Lyons in the WSJ today, one of the worst and riskiest is his decision to nationalize Banco de Venezuela, which the then-government sold … Continue reading →

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Gasoline Datapoint of the Day

Posted on August 4, 2008 by Felix

Comes from Edmunds.com: The median household is spending 11.5% of its income on gasoline, up from 4.6% of its income five years ago. It’s a pretty basic calculation, which assumes that both miles driven per year and fuel economy have … Continue reading →

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Art in Textbooks

Posted on August 4, 2008 by Felix

David Galenson has a list of the greatest works of art of the 20th Century. The Demoiselles are in top place, which is reasonable enough. But the list gets rather screwy after that: Tatlin’s model of his unbuilt Monument to … Continue reading →

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Productivity: Looking Good

Posted on August 4, 2008 by Felix

One of the bright spots in the recent GDP reports has been the productivity figures. Whenever GDP continues to grow even as employment is falling, productivity — which is the growth in GDP per worker — will look particularly strong. … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Sunday Bonus Edition

Posted on August 3, 2008 by Felix

A Response to the Gates Foundation Memo: Stephen Landsburg lays into the "creative capitalists". I Heart Adam Smith: He groks all the contradictions in the nexus between wealth and happiness. Riches to Rags: "Phillips believes the agony of the American … Continue reading →

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Art and the Profit Motive

Posted on August 3, 2008 by Felix

I can’t face the idea of writing another 3,000-word book review, so I’ll blog Sarah Thornton’s Seven Days in the Art World as I’m reading it. I haven’t even got past the introduction yet, but I’ve already found one sentence … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Sunday Edition

Posted on August 3, 2008 by Felix

Big Numbers, Made Smaller: "G.M. sold 2.29 million vehicles in the quarter. The losses came to $6,756 per vehicle." How To Get Twitter Wrong: It’s about reading, not writing. And 15 once we reach Alderaan…: The mathematics of distressed CDS … Continue reading →

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Blogonomics: The Flame Warriors

Posted on August 3, 2008 by Felix

Don’t mess with Jim Cramer. He went to Harvard, you know. You swear a whole lot, but sometime you may want to learn the proper usage of “than” and “then”. Your “even than” manages to make you look even less … Continue reading →

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Location, Location, Location

Posted on August 2, 2008 by Felix

BusinessWeek had a good idea this week: look at big metropolitan areas and see how the best-performing zip codes have compared to the worst-performing ones. Unfortunately, the final implementation is atrocious: it involves clicking laboriously through an interminable slide show, … Continue reading →

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More Savings Advice for Twentysomethings

Posted on August 2, 2008 by Felix

Bryan Keller has just written a very astute email taking issue with my retirement advice for twentysomethings, and asks if it doesn’t contradict slightly the points I made when I was promoting financial wellness. Keller says that financial wellness is … Continue reading →

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Retirement Advice for Twentysomethings

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Felix

A reader writes: As a "younger investor" myself looking for ways to retire with millions (we can all dream), I’ve been trying to start early and doing my research to figure out ways to gain an advantage in the long … Continue reading →

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Did Reg FD Have Unintended Consequences?

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Felix

Heidi Moore has an interesting interview with Vanderbilt professor Robert Whaley, who claims to have found some nasty unintended consequences to the SEC’s Regulation Fair Disclosure, which tried to ensure investors were on a level playing field with respect to … Continue reading →

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Unemployment Spikes

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Felix

5.7% unemployment? That’s ugly. The headline payrolls number of -51,000 jobs might be less bad than the market expected, especially since the fall in June was smaller than originally reported as well. But only the financial markets care about the … Continue reading →

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How is GM Still Alive?

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Felix

In the world of eye-popping earnings, GM has managed to beat even Exxon Mobil. Exxon made a profit of $11.7 billion in the second quarter; GM has manged to come out with a $15.5 billion loss, or $27.33 a share. … Continue reading →

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The Upside of Moral Hazard

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Felix

Bob Van Order, a former chief economist of Freddie Mac, has a long and sensible piece describing what Fannie and Freddie are good for, and examining the problems they’re currently facing. Along the way, he talks a bit about the … Continue reading →

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Privatizing Parking

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Felix

Kit Roane reckons it’ll be a long time before we see any significant infrastructure privatization in New York State: If Paterson wanted to turn the New York State Thruway over to private operators, he’d first have to pilot a bill … Continue reading →

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Hiring Alan Schwartz

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Felix

Dear John Thain is very upset that Alan Schwartz, the last CEO of Bear Stearns, might get a good job elsewhere, now that he’s decided not to stay at JP Morgan. Indeed, he says that offering a job to Schwartz … Continue reading →

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