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Sarah Palin Sells the Headfake, But Gibson Doesn’t Bite–and Other Sundry Observations

People have analyzed the heck out of Sarah Palin’s response when Charlie Gibson asked if she agreed with the Bush Doctrine. For the record, I agree that it is embarrassing that she didn’t know what it was, especially since foreign policy is her obvious weakness. On the other hand, as somebody who just got butterflies […]

The Economics of Potty Training

Ah, if I were a tenured academic, the papers I could write… I am struggling with my toddler. For other economist daddies (and mommies), you will appreciate the applications of formal analysis to this topic. You’ve got principal-agent problems requiring payoff rules that are incentive-compatible and overcome seriously asymmetric information. (This latter leads to both […]

Blood Bath on Wall Street: Buy Gold

Since today has been the worst day for the Dow since the September 11 attacks, I should probably say something. Back in July 2007 I prepared a report for a client (pdf) in which I predicted recession and tough times for the US dollar; you can see op ed treatments here and here. My basic […]

Fed Injects $70 Billion to Push Down Federal Funds Rate

According to this CNBC article: Federal funds traded in the U.S. interbank lending market slipped to about 4 percent from 6 percent earlier on Monday, after the Federal Reserve added $50 billion of temporary reserves to the banking system in a second overnight repurchase agreement. Earlier on Monday, federal funds surged to 6 percent, well […]

Murphy on Freddie & Fannie Takeover

In Sunday’s Philadelphia Inquirer, I argue it was not good. A juicy excerpt: If Congress defangs the alternative minimum tax, as it did last year to prevent a large increase on the middle class, the latest Congressional Budget Office forecast projects a record deficit of more than $500 billion for the fiscal year starting Oct. […]

The Dismal Economics of Marx’s Das Kapital

Mark Thoma runs a popular economics blog. He recently relayed Michael Perelman’s request for comments on a paper he (Perelman) will be presenting in China. The paper is “The Economics of Kapital and the Capital of Economics.” Reader “John V.” sent me the link, and suggested I would have a “field day” with the paper. […]

"It Doesn’t Matter Who[m] You Vote For, Just Go Vote!"

So I heard two radio DJs urging the other day. This never made sense to me, even putting aside my objections to the modern system of government. Shouldn’t the true fan of Civics 101 say something like, “Go educate yourself and then vote!” ? I mean really, what good does it do to urge people […]

Faith and Reason

In a previous post, I asserted (with little proof) that, “Faith in Climate Models Is Non-Falsifiable.” One of the two frequent thorns in my side, Tokyo Tom, made it clear that he has read better blog posts in his day. In particular, Tom didn’t like my attribution of “faith” to “very very smart” scientists. What’s […]