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We hear a lot about the “stimulus vs austerity” debate. The phrase (in quotes) gives more than half a million hits on Google. But that’s a crude, inaccurate way to think about our policies. The fact is, we have both stimulus and austerity now. The stimulus is for the rich (the “job creators” who need […] Someone pointed me to the photo collection Mugshots of the 1920s, from the files of the New South Wales police. All the pictures are worth a look, but I took a special interest in this guy: Not that the photo itself is better than the rest, but here’s the police description: A con man who […] Dylan Matthews, at the Washington Post’s Wonkblog, has a pretty well-reasoned piece suggesting that we should just get rid of the laws against insider trading. That sounds crazy at first, but it’s hard to argue with most of his reasons–in fact, I’m on record saying some of the same things, including: Insider trading laws are […] I of course obsessively Google my own name, and I just found that the Hipcrime blog mentioned my talk at the Full Circle Series (recording available at the C-realm site here). More than that, they actually bothered to transcribe part of it! It reads much like I was giving a talk without notes (which I […] The New York Times has a well-researched article on how banks have been entering commodity markets (like aluminum); it makes the case that Goldman has been profiting by restricting the supply of aluminum, while consumers have paid extra, to the tune of like $5 billion. Not all of that $5 billion has gone into Goldman’s […] Les Échos is a French financial newspaper dedicated to the proposition that markets are better than planning (as a rule of thumb). And they like Economix! This might be the closest I’ve come to an official notice from the financial world. So, it’s summer. It’s hot and it’s going to get hotter. You may be thinking of buying an air conditioner. Before you do, though, why not buy new lightbulbs–those swirly compact fluorescents–instead? Sure, you answer. Or hey, why not a new camera lens? Or a hundred pounds of bacon? Or a pony? Bear with me. […] So, the French version of Economix has been getting some awesome reviews. Here’s Phillipe Arnaud in Le Monde, which even I, in my America-based provincialism, had heard of: “Proof that one can make difficult concepts intelligible without the encumbrance of mathematics!” (My translation.) And Omri Ezrati at Al Bayane (a Francophone Moroccan outlet) says: “Combining […] Friday, June 21, 12:10 PM: A day that will live forever. For it is the day that I, Mike Goodwin, will be speaking at Port Washington Public Library. Come by! I’m working on my talk now–it should be good. Info is here: http://www.pwpl.org/blog/2013/05/11/sandwiched-in-101/ Bruce Bartlett, in the awesomely named but unrelated Economix blog over at the Times, has a piece that makes a point that I’ve been thinking for years: Finance is a drag on the economy. This goes against all sorts of economic orthodoxy; in this view, if we’re paying banks, stockbrokers, and real estate agents more […] |
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