Detroit Implodes
One of the more striking findings in William Easterly's writings about Third World Aid is how little is learned, just the continual call...
'The Spread' is Absurd, So is Life
In college debate there's a strategy called ' speed and spread ', where a speaker speed reads the broadest number of arguments p...
CFPB to Start Big
A months-long internal investigation of 500 loan files by the Federal Reserve found no wrongful foreclosures, members of the Fed's Consu...
Ambiguity Aversion and Panics
The rise in 'information sensitivity' across a broad cross-section of formerly informationally insensitive assets occurs due to fear...
Spending Other People's Money
Walter Bagehot noted that 'the most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that on the whole, it is a question whether the benevol...
CalPERS Rosy Assumptions
CalPERS, the pension fund in charge of California's $230B portfolio, recently noted they rejected adjusting their expected return over t...
DeLong and Krugman Don't Get It
For a wealthy, high status man, Krugman sure sounds angry much of the time. Here's his response to those who don't buy DeLong and ...
Inflation 6.6%?
Larry Kudlow reports : Respondents anticipate prices to climb 6.6 percent over the next year. That’s double the 3 percent inflation register...
N.R. Hanson's Theory Ladenness
I remember being really impressed by Popper's writings on falsification, but over time I think it's much more of a goal than a descr...
Definition of Rationality
Many think irrationality is when people make a decision that with hindsight was really dumb, like making a bad investment. A good definitio...
Libertarian Test
It seems the government wants to put some bureaucrat in place of you actually knowing your own DNA! Alas, it isn't obvious that Democra...
Tsunami Caused by Global Warming
What I find so interesting about these guys is they spend a large fraction of their time discussing the big problem of people whose beliefs...
No Biased Coins
Many introductory probability courses involve 'biased' coins. The authors of this paper argue this is the unicorn of probability t...
Crash Casualty: Diversification
Just as hard cases make bad law, economic crises create bad ideas. Mainly, the idea that you can have growth without cycles if you have more...
5 Myths of Social Security
Most lists have 10, but for some reason, things pertaining to Social Security contains 5. Here's the Liberal's "5 myths"...
Heat Players Cry
I was amused to see on SportCenter ESPN mocking Miami Heat players for, supposedly, crying after losing to the Bulls. I had a coach who on...
What is Low Risk Investing?
I went to a wealth conference for high net worth individuals, because I knew one of the brokers (I'm not a high net worth individual). ...
Simpson's Paradox
Last week, Paul Krugman argued that kids in Wisconsin outperform kids in Texas, which to him implied this was due to the collective bargaini...
Monopolies for Everyone
Monopolies enjoy above average profits because barriers to entry prevent competition from lower prices down to their marginal cost. This re...
Remember Liberaltarianism?
Brink Lindsey and Will Wilkinson tried to convince liberals to adopt their libertarianism , as they were frustrated by Republican social con...
Markets Learn, Governments Don't
Back in the housing bubble, the Community Reinvestment act required banks to meet community needs as a prerequisite for obtaining merger app...
The Parable of the Light Bulb
I will always remember an existential depression I had when I was about 12 years old. We were on vacation in our family truckster and I was...
Low Vol Presentation in NYC March 16
Above are the total return charts for low and high beta stocks , where portfolios were created using 100 stocks out of the top 1500 non-ETF ...
GAO Report Finds Redundancy, CFPA to improve SEC/CFTC/Fed/FDIC/OCC/OTS/OFHEO
The CFPA was set up with a carve-out of Federal Reserve revenue, and thus is a new perpetual bureaucracy that will somehow do what the other...
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