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Nudging Spontaneity

Just a reminder, if any of you already have copies of my new book, it would help if you were moved on your own to write a glowing review for it on Amazon. The book launch is Monday, and apparently some people actually read Amazon reviews when deciding whether to buy (go figure). I would […]

Goldman Sachs Discovers the Joys of Off-Budget Accounting

I am not versed enough in corporate accounting to talk responsibly about this. All I can say is, when Goldman Sachs conveniently decides to shift its fiscal year to exclude a December that had more than $1 billion in (pre-tax) losses…something is really fishy. Now if we had private financial markets, I wouldn’t care about […]

Ben Stein Suspicious of Those Untrained In the Ways of High Finance

This is too rich. Bob Roddis–a carbon-based Google Alerts–sent me this ridiculous Ben Stein article. It contains such gems as the following: They allowed simply criminal self-dealing in the form of executive compensation—and just plain stealing—from Wall Street to Main Street. They did not stop the pools of manipulators and looters on Wall Street and […]

Remaking Classic Movies: Homage or Sacrilege?

It’s a tough issue. If nothing else, it is undeniable that when someone does a remake of a classic, it generates more interest in the original. For example, I’m pretty sure that I rented the original The Producers only when the Lane/Broderick version was generating so much buzz. (I didn’t even watch the remake, mind […]

Orwell Lives! People Making Over $200k Don’t Work

Forget the fact that we are all going to be taxed to the mizax* because of Obama’s Bush Squared spending. This really annoyed me: President Obama seized the opportunity on tax-filing day to assert that his administration is easing the tax burden of working people. At the same time, protesters are expected to mark April […]

CPI Officially Fell At 1.2% Annualized Rate in March (!)

Well hmm. If today’s CPI numbers had shown a positive (seasonally adjusted) growth rate, I was all set to trumpet from the mountaintops: “WAKE UP PEOPLE!! Bernanke et al. keep warning us of ‘deflationary’ pressures when there were three straight months of price hikes higher than the Fed’s alleged ‘comfort zone’ throughout the whole first […]

Capitalist Critics Called the Crisis

In a Slate article, Daniel Gross debates whether bankers or economists deserve more blame for the boom/bust. After saying that most economists missed the ball, he has a link to this sidebar in which he declares: Among the economists who kept their heads during the boom and spoke sensibly throughout: Nouriel Roubini of New York […]

I Didn’t Tell You So

OK folks, in the interest of getting to sleep at night, let me be honest and admit that I was very surprised at the reported outcomes of the captain being held hostage and also at today’s PPI report. Assuming the official accounts are accurate–i.e. that three snipers really all had head shots on a bobbing […]