Archive for Potpourri

Potpourri

* Tim Haab over at Env-Econ links to this story about flatulent cows. I don’t care about the fish oil; what caught my eye was the casual discussion of capping the number of farm animals to avert global warming. I had never heard that before; up till now, I thought that was just a reductio [...]

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Potpourri

* Tyler Cowen links to a piece that explains a strategy to game the Geithner plan. * Oh man, more talk about the Fed’s “weapons” at Mankiw’s blog…Check it out: Some people are concerned that in the the fight against recession, the weapons of monetary policy are nearly out of ammunition. That is certainly the [...]

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Potpourri

* I defend the gold standard. * Rose and White warn the Fed that it is committing the opposite mistake that (according to Friedman) the Fed committed during the 1930s. * Arnold Kling has a great post about financial regulation. * Not sure what I’m saying here. * James Fogal sends the YouTube below. I [...]

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Potpourri

* My brother sends me this YouTube of Hitler reacting to the Buffalo Bills’ signing of Terrell Owens. (We grew up in Rochester and so are Bills fans–they lost the Superbowl every year I was in high school. I am still bitter.) This is now the 3rd or 4th spoof of this scene; can someone [...]

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Potpourri

Three great pieces for ya… * The definitive free marketeer blog post on how to think about the mark-to-market controversy. * Bob Higgs rolls up his sleeves and blows up (what he calls) vulgar Keynesianism. I warn you that there are a few equations in here, but this is top-flight stuff. Higgs really nails the [...]

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Potpourri

* Mark Weber passes along a Vanity Fair interview with Louis CK. Now in the middle you might think, “Wait a second, he sounds anti-consumer, not anti-Fed! I’ve been duped!” But c’mon, the guy’s a comedian. Just like you can love Carlin and Bill Hicks for their foreign policy riffs, so too can you appreciate [...]

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Potpourri

* Here’s a great Wenzel analysis of censorship (perhaps self-imposed) in financial reporting. At a New York conference recently Luo Ping, a director-general at the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said, “We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion-$2 trillion [$1,000bn-$2,000bn] . . .we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate [...]

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Potpourri

* Here is Nouriel Roubini explaining that laissez-faire capitalism has failed. I’m not sure how the Federal Reserve (which caused the boom) or the trillions in bailouts and other rescue moves (which caused/exacerbated the financial panic) qualifies as laissez-faire. But beyond that quibble, I love how Roubini lists all of the things that can go [...]

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