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{ Tag Archives } OWS

Generations

One of the things that strikes me at work is the number of folks in the cohort just older than me [1] who have second homes in the mountains – Big Bear, Yosemite, Arrowhead, etc. Not too many ocean, that was always unaffordable for working joes. In my cohort [2], the unmarried of us own […]

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TIL

That even a blind pig finds an acorn now and again. A good article in Forbes, of all places. Is the money the stockholders’, the customers’ or the employees’? Apparently, it can be any of those possibilities, depending on which argument the article is trying to make. In Professor Friedman’s wondrous world, the money is […]

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How the American higher education system was destroyed

In five easy steps. I’d say this is utter paranoia, that the Cabal that runs our country is not that cohesive and controlling, that it just happened by accident, but they have done it to the healthcare system, the secondary school system, the public unions, the networks, and the great research labs. And I read […]

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Too big to nail

That’s the trick. HSBC launders money for the bad guys in the War on Some Drugs and Some People, and some members of the Axis of Evil, and pays a small fine relative to their profits, and the people in charge defer their bonuses for a short time. Not go to jail, not pay a […]

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Nailed it again

If you didn’t read anything else, the first two paragraphs should put to rest any inkling you might ever have that nations are like families, and budgets must be balanced. Krgthulu: [T]he economy is not like an individual family. Families earn what they can, and spend as much as they think prudent; spending and earning […]

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Sun rises in the east again

Though you’d never know it this time of year around here. As it turns out, there are about 10% more people on disability in 2013 after the greatest recession since the 30s than there were in 1995. And most of that is due to simple demographics – it’s the boomers. Big shock. But by all […]

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Utterly and completely corrupt

I was going to go off on a rant, but Matt Taibbi hit every note I was going to hit. Launder billions of drug money at the highest level, and defer your bonus for five years. Defer. Not lose. Fall asleep on the subway, and spend the night in Rikers. And pay for the DNA […]

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The real reason not to vote for Romney

He’s a lousy businessman. Any investor who listened to Vanguard’s John Bogle would have done about the same during 1984-1998 – just buy the S&P500 index, and hold it, reinvesting the dividends. The net returns would be ~20% per year — without giant fees or excessive risks necessary. So despite all the middle-class-disrupting, race-to-the-bottom, Swiss-bank-account, […]

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Efficient markets, except when they’re not

The excellent BdL, on the problem with people who are too smart for their own good: I guess I am learning–once again–that executing a dynamic hedging strategy requires that the market be efficient at all times you need to trade except the moment you initially put on the position…

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Could be worse

Could be raining. Remember that incident at Davis? Turns out that at every step of the way, what the students did was not only legal, but not even questionable – the authorities at UCD were told so by their legal department in advance. Also, at every step of the way, what the authorities did was […]

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Revealed preference

Interfluidity (ht: BdL): We are in a depression, but not because we don’t know how to remedy the problem.[..] We are choosing continued depression because we prefer it to the alternatives. […T]he preferences of developed, aging polities — first Japan, now the United States and Europe — are obvious to a dispassionate observer. Their overwhelming […]

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Austerity

What Atrios said: […]it’s weird that Keynes is invoked sort of like he dabbled in arcane voodoo. If you implement policies that lay off a big chunk of your population and destroy functioning civil society, the consequences shouldn’t be much of a surprise. It’s not like it’s hard to explain, or understand. Yes, excess government […]

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It’s as though they’re having a sale on pitchforks and torches…

and they want us to know where to go first. I doubt that these guys are looking for coupons for Wheat Chex, so maybe unindicted criminals are a better place to start than with mere whingers.

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Austerity for thee, not for me

Iceland does it right, gives the banks a haircut, and sends the banksters to jail. Economy recovers. Compare to Greece, Portugal, Ireland. Draw your own conclusions about whether Keynes was right, or whether the Hayek was right.

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“Soundbite of laughter”

So I was lying in bed this morning listening to the radio. I’d prefer the BBC, but KPCC switches over to NPR far too early. Then I heard the dulcet, seemingly reasonable, tones of Renee Montagne say this: …we start with a reminder of the root of Europe’s financial crisis: European countries borrowed too much […]

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