|
Control of the House of Representatives |
Probability |
|
Democrats |
10.30% |
|
Republicans |
88.90% |
|
Neither |
1.00% |
|
Number of House seats gained by the GOP |
|
|
20 Seats Gained |
97.70% |
|
30 Seats Gained |
96.00% |
|
40 Seats Gained |
93.90% |
|
50 Seats Gained |
73.00% |
|
60 Seats Gained |
37.00% |
|
Control of the Senate |
|
|
Democrats |
58.70% |
|
Republicans |
16.10% |
|
Neither |
28.80% |
|
Number of Senate seats held by GOP |
|
|
45 GOP Seats |
95.00% |
|
46 GOP Seats |
88.10% |
|
47 GOP Seats |
84.00% |
|
48 GOP Seats |
70.20% |
|
49 GOP Seats |
48.00% |
|
50 GOP Seats |
30.30% |
|
51 GOP Seats |
20.40% |
|
Senate Race Spotlight: COLORADO |
|
|
Michael Bennet (D) |
37.60% |
|
Ken Buck (R) |
60.00% |
|
Senate Race Spotlight: CALIFORNIA |
|
|
Barbara Boxer (D) |
70.10% |
|
Carly Fiorina (R) |
29.50% |
Monthly Archives: October 2010
"Fat Tails" and implications for risk management
Benoît Mandelbrot passed away last week at the ripe old age of 85. Mandelbrot was most famous for his seminal work in the field of fractal geometry, but is also considered by many (e.g., Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author of Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan) as the “intellectual father” behind critiques of efficient markets models. Mandelbrot’s critique of efficient market theory was centered on the notion that actual return distributions are more “fat tailed” than would be implied by the normal distribution. Taleb provocatively argues in chapter 15 of his book The Black Swan that the bell curve (normal distribution), when applied to financial markets, is a “great intellectual fraud”. Taleb has also recently argued that “… the Nobel Prize for Economics (specifically, the 1990 awards to Harry Markowitz, Merton Miller and William Sharpe for their work on portfolio theory and asset-pricing models and the 1997 awards to Myron Scholes and Robert Merton for their work on option pricing theory) has conferred legitimacy on risk models that caused investors’ losses and taxpayer-funded bailouts…”, and that “investors who lost money in the financial crisis should sue the Swedish Central Bank for awarding the Nobel Prize to economists whose theories he said brought down the global economy” (see “`Black Swan’ Author Says Investors Should Sue Nobel for Crisis“). While there is no question that Dr. Taleb’s narrative is brash and provocative, I am not convinced. Of course, he would argue that people like me who received their graduate training in finance during the past 2-3 decades have a vested interest in defending orthodoxy for its own sake. However, it’s only fair to also recognize that Dr. Taleb has a vested interested in defending heterodoxy for its own sake. It seems that Taleb seeks to discredit pretty much anyone who happens to disagree with him, not on the strength of the arguments that they marshall on behalf of “orthodoxy”, but rather on the basis of ad hominem arguments about how they can’t be taken seriously because they are intellectually biased a priori in favor of efficient markets orthodoxy. I couldn’t have explained the implications of Benoit Mandelbrot’s research for financial markets any better than Dr. Ewan Kirk, who is Chief Executive for Cantab Capital Partners in Cambridge, UK, so I quote directly from Dr. Kirk’s letter to the Financial Times entitled “How Mandelbrot Caused Confusion“: “It is true that markets are very difficult to model precisely. Indeed, even after this simple transformation, there continue to be significant non normal features to markets and of course there are always “unknown unknowns” and “black swan” events. However, these issues are considerably more subtle than just presenting the 100-year unscaled daily returns of the stock market and implying that foolish theoreticians and practitioners are modeling the returns as a stationary Gaussian or normal distribution.” Also, the essay by Bob Gillespie entitled “Black Swans and Absurdistan” is worth reading. In closing, I would like to point out two interesting videos from FT.com. The first video, “Inefficient markets and Mandelbrot“, features a debate concerning whether the impact of Mandelbrot’s legacy has been overstated. The other video, “Why ‘efficient markets’ collapse” is an interview with Mandelbrot recorded last year in which Mandelbrot explains his more than 40-year old critique of the “efficient markets” hypothesis and why new (i.e., Mandelbrotian) theories on price movement discontinuities are needed in light of the financial crisis of 2007-????.”]]>
“Fat Tails” and implications for risk management
Yale mathematician and emeritus professor Benoît Mandelbrot passed away last week at the ripe old age of 85. Mandelbrot was most famous for his seminal work in the field of fractal geometry, but is also considered by many (e.g., Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author of Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan) as the “intellectual father” behind critiques of efficient markets models. Mandelbrot’s critique of efficient market theory was centered on the notion that actual return distributions are more “fat tailed” than would be implied by the normal distribution. Taleb provocatively argues in chapter 15 of his book The Black Swan that the bell curve (normal distribution), when applied to financial markets, is a “great intellectual fraud”. Taleb has also recently argued that “… the Nobel Prize for Economics (specifically, the 1990 awards to Harry Markowitz, Merton Miller and William Sharpe for their work on portfolio theory and asset-pricing models and the 1997 awards to Myron Scholes and Robert Merton for their work on option pricing theory) has conferred legitimacy on risk models that caused investors’ losses and taxpayer-funded bailouts…”, and that “investors who lost money in the financial crisis should sue the Swedish Central Bank for awarding the Nobel Prize to economists whose theories he said brought down the global economy” (see “`Black Swan’ Author Says Investors Should Sue Nobel for Crisis“).
While there is no question that Dr. Taleb’s narrative is brash and provocative, I am not convinced. Of course, he would argue that people like me who received their graduate training in finance during the past 2-3 decades have a vested interest in defending orthodoxy for its own sake. However, it’s only fair to also recognize that Dr. Taleb has a vested interested in defending heterodoxy for its own sake. It seems that Taleb seeks to discredit pretty much anyone who happens to disagree with him, not on the strength of the arguments that they marshall on behalf of “orthodoxy”, but rather on the basis of ad hominem arguments about how they can’t be taken seriously because they are intellectually biased a priori in favor of efficient markets orthodoxy.
I couldn’t have explained the implications of Benoit Mandelbrot’s research for financial markets any better than Dr. Ewan Kirk, who is Chief Executive for Cantab Capital Partners in Cambridge, UK, so I quote directly from Dr. Kirk’s letter to the Financial Times entitled “How Mandelbrot Caused Confusion“: “It is true that markets are very difficult to model precisely. Indeed, even after this simple transformation, there continue to be significant non normal features to markets and of course there are always “unknown unknowns” and “black swan” events. However, these issues are considerably more subtle than just presenting the 100-year unscaled daily returns of the stock market and implying that foolish theoreticians and practitioners are modeling the returns as a stationary Gaussian or normal distribution.” Also, the essay by Bob Gillespie entitled “Black Swans and Absurdistan” is worth reading.
In closing, I would like to point out two interesting videos from FT.com. The first video, “Inefficient markets and Mandelbrot“, features a debate concerning whether the impact of Mandelbrot’s legacy has been overstated. The other video, “Why ‘efficient markets’ collapse” is an interview with Mandelbrot recorded last year in which Mandelbrot explains his more than 40-year old critique of the “efficient markets” hypothesis and why new (i.e., Mandelbrotian) theories on price movement discontinuities are needed in light of the financial crisis of 2007-????.”
Assorted Links (10/21/2010)
Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading lately:
Can Yoga Be Christian?
online.wsj.com
“In the Wall Street Journal’s Houses of Worship column, Stephen Prothero of Boston University examines how an exercise craze provokes questions of body and soul.”
The Chris Christie Clones
online.wsj.com
“In The Wall Street Journal, Potomac Watch columnist Kimberley A. Strassel writes that across the country, candidates are taking up the government-reform mantra embodied by New Jersey’s new governor.”
Tea Party to the Rescue
online.wsj.com
“Peggy Noonan writes in The Wall Street Journal on how the GOP was saved from Bush and the establishment.”
NPR’s Taxpayer-Funded Intolerance
online.wsj.com
“In The Wall Street Journal, Emilio Karim Dabul writes that all Americans, particularly those of Arab or Muslim descent, should protest the firing of Juan Williams.”
Google to Post the Dead Sea Scrolls – Copyright Infringement Claims Unlikely
www.vogelitlawblog.com
“Google will not be accused of copyright infringement by posting the Dead Sea Scrolls unlike the current litigation about Google’s Books Library.”
Charles Krauthammer – Obama Underappreciation Syndrome
www.washingtonpost.com
“Democrats have anxiety-induced Obama Underappreciation Syndrome.”
Vaclav Klaus: An anti-human ideology
opinion.financialpost.com
“Global warming may just be statistical fluctuations … The global warming dispute starts with a doctrine which claims that the rough coexistence of climate changes, of growing temperatures and of man-made increments of CO2 in the atmosphere — and what is more, only in a relatively short period of time — is a proof of a causal relationship between these phenomena. To the best of my knowledge there is no such relationship between them. It is, nevertheless, this claim that forms the basis for the doctrine of environmentalism.”
An Unthinkable Tax Code
www.realclearmarkets.com
“Pity the politician who tries to take a serious look at our federal budget and tax mess and come up with a fix.”
ObamaCare’s Incentive to Drop Insurance
online.wsj.com
“In the Wall Street Journal, Tennessee Gov. Philip Bredesen writes that his state could reduce costs by over $146 million using the legislated mechanics of health reform to transfer coverage to the federal government.”
The Biggest Race You Haven’t Heard Of
online.wsj.com
“In the Wall Street Journal, Wonder Land columnist Daniel Henninger writes that Harry Wilson thinks he can defuse New York State’s public-pension bomb. ”
Dodd-Frank: A critical assessment | vox – Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading
www.voxeu.org
“The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is widely viewed as the most sweeping set of reforms to the US financial sector since the Great Depression. Despite being broadly in favour of the measures, this column identifies flaws that fail to deal with the main causes of the crisis.”
How the Foreclosure Fiasco Threatens the Economy – Rick Newman (usnews.com)
money.usnews.com
“If paperwork flaws turn into something bigger, it could trigger another recession. ”
Assorted Links (10/20/2010)
Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading lately:
Democrats and the Politics of Recession
online.wsj.com
“In The Wall Street Journal, J.T. Young notes that the myth that Roosevelt ended the Depression has come back to haunt the current administration. If FDR solved the problem, why can’t Obama?”
Bernanke’s Inflation Target Misses the Mark
online.wsj.com
“In The Wall Street Journal, Henry Kaufman writes that the more latitude the Federal Reserve has to try to spur economic growth, the more economic uncertainty there will be.”
Review & Outlook: ObamaCare, for Some
online.wsj.com
“The Wall Street Journal says that the Obama Administration has decided not to enforce some of the health law’s consumer protections.”
The Overseas Profits Elephant in the Room
online.wsj.com
“In the Wall Street Journal, John Chambers of Cisco Systems and Safra Catz of Oracle Corporation write that a trillion dollars is waiting to be repatriated if tax policy is right.”
How the Fed Is Holding Back Recovery
online.wsj.com
“In The Wall Street Journal, economist David Malpass says that the Federal Reserve, by promising to print more money, is giving Congress an excuse to avoid critical tax and spending cuts.”
Small Worlds
www.boston.com
“Nikon International Small World Photomicrography Competition recently announced its list of winners for 2010. The competition began in 1974 as a means to recognize and applaud the efforts of those involved with photography through the light microscope. Peering into the small worlds of animal, plants and minerals using many techniques and different instruments, this year’s entries brought us images of crystalline formations, fluorescent body parts, cellular structures and more, valuable for both their beauty and insight.”
Consensus Points Toward 50-Seat G.O.P. Gain in House
www.nytimes.com
“Extent of the “enthusiasm gap” may play a big role in determining how successful the Republicans are.”
Eyes on the Prize
www.cafehayek.com
“Explaining the political necessity that many Democrats feel to publicly denounce House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – and conceding that these denunciations will cause problems for Democrats in the next Congress – Democratic political strategist Mark Mellman says “But more people are concerned about winning than about whatever post-election problems we might have.”
Why Construction Projects Often Run Over Budget – The Numbers Guy – WSJ
blogs.wsj.com
“Why initial cost estimates for major building projects so often prove to be underestimates.”
The Weekend Interview with Robert Mundell: On Currency, Where Do We Go From Here?
online.wsj.com
“In the Wall Street Journal, economist Judy Shelton interviews Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Mundell, who says that the most important initiative we could take to improve the world economy would be to stabilize the dollar-euro rate.”
Obamanomics Paints Ohio Red – WSJ.com
online.wsj.com
“Stephen Hayes writes in The Wall Street Journal that Republicans appear poised for major gains in November elections in the Midwest, a region dominated by the president in 2008.”
Viva Chile! They Left No Man Behind. – WSJ.com
online.wsj.com
“A show of competence and determination inspires the world, Peggy Noonan writes.”
Lies, Damn Lies and the ObamaCare Sales Pitch – WSJ.com
online.wsj.com
“Joe Rago writes in The Wall Street Journal about the Obama administration’s health-care fabrications.”
Peter Berkowitz: Why Liberals Don’t Get the Tea Party Movement – WSJ.com
online.wsj.com
“In the Wall Street Journal, Peter Berkowitz of the Hoover Institution writes that our universities haven’t taught much political history for decades, so it’s no wonder that so many progressives have disdain for the principles that animated the Federalist debates.”
Charles Krauthammer – Your pre-election post-mortem
www.washingtonpost.com
“We don’t need to wait for Nov. 2 with this pre-election post-mortem.”
Health Care Plans, Waivers, Choice?
www.realclearmarkets.com
“The Department of Health and Human Services celebrated the six-month “anniversary” of enactment of the new health care law by granting waivers of its requirements to 30 companies, covering almost a million workers, so that those companies can keep their insurance plans going for another year.”
Assorted Links (10/15/2010)
Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading lately:
The 4 Ways to Spend Money by Milton Friedman
www.youtube.com
“In his book Free to Choose, Milton Friedman described four ways to spend money. 1. You spend your own money on yourself. 2. You spend your own money on someone else. 3. You spend someone else’s money on yourself. 4. You spend someone else’s money on someone else.” In a nutshell, he makes a very compelling case for allocating resources through the private sector rather than the public sector.
Book Review: Extraordinary, Ordinary People
online.wsj.com
“Tunku Varadarajan reviews Condoleezza Rice’s Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family.”
Review & Outlook: ObamaCare in Court
online.wsj.com
“The Wall Street Journal writes that a Florida judge allows the major state lawsuit to proceed to trial.”
Review & Outlook: Liberalism and Public Works
online.wsj.com
“The Wall Street Journal writes that entitlement politics leaves little money for roads and tunnels.”
Stop Bashing Business, Mr. President
online.wsj.com
“Ken Langone, the co-founder of The Home Depot, writes in The Wall Street Journal that if he and his partners tried to start their business today, it’s a stone cold certainty that it would never get off the ground.”
Scott Gottlieb and Tom Miller: How to Reform ObamaCare Starting Now
online.wsj.com
“In the Wall Street Journal, Scott Gottlieb and Tom Miller of the American Enterprise Institute write that states should steer the mandated health-insurance exchanges in a pro-market direction and dare Washington to stop them.”
Book Review: The Hellhound of Wall Street
online.wsj.com
“James Grant reviews Michael Perino’s, The Hellhound of Wall Street: How Ferdinand Pecora’s Investigation of the Great Crash Forever Changed American Finance.”
Capitalism Saved the Miners
online.wsj.com
“In The Wall Street Journal, Wonder Land columnist Daniel Henninger writes that the profit = innovation dynamic was everywhere at the Chilean mine rescue site.”
President Obama Looks Forward — and Back
nytimes.com
“Mr. Obama reflects on his presidency, admitting that he let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend Democrat,” realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” and perhaps should have “let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts” in the stimulus.”
What is going on with marriage?
nytimes.com
“You’ve probably heard the latest marriage narrative: With the recession upon us, young lovers can’t afford to marry. As appealing as this story is, it has one problem: It’s not true.”
Should the Nobel Folks Be Sued for the Financial Crisis?
freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com
“The recent financial crisis clearly had many contributing villains. But if you’re looking to sue someone to recover losses, Nassim Nicholas Taleb maintains, the choice is clear: the Swedish Central Bank, which awards the Nobel Prize in Economics.”
The Foolish Foreclosure Moratorium — The American, A Magazine of Ideas
www.american.com
“Democrats are calling for a nationwide end to mortgage foreclosures. It’s hard to imagine a more shortsighted policy under our current economic circumstances.”
Assorted Links (10/13/2010)
Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading lately:
Christien Meindertsma: How pig parts make the world turn | Video on TED.com
ted.com
“TED Talks Christien Meindertsma, author of “Pig 05049” looks at the astonishing afterlife of the ordinary pig, parts of which make their way into at least 185 non-pork products, from bullets to artificial hearts.”
Google to map inflation using web data
ft.com
“Data could provide an alternative to official statistics.”
Higher Taxes Mean I’ll Work Less
nytimes.com
“A personal case study looks at some of the ways higher taxes may affect the earnings of high-income taxpayers.”
Review & Outlook: The 2010 Spending Record
online.wsj.com
“The Wall Street Journal on the 21.4% federal spending increase in two years.”
Boehner’s ‘Plan B’ for ObamaCare
online.wsj.com
“In the Wall Street Journal, Main Street columnist William McGurn writes that congressional hearings can be used to sell market-friendly fixes.”
Europe the Intolerant
online.wsj.com
“In the Wall Street Journal, James Kirchick writes that the continent’s progressive image is a fabrication of the American liberal mind.”
NFL vs. ‘TV Everywhere’
online.wsj.com
“In The Wall Street Journal, Business World columnist Holman Jenkins, Jr. says that TV’s fight to preserve its power in the face of digital ubiquity may be a lost cause.”
Book Review: Roosevelt’s Purge
online.wsj.com
“Jonathan Karl reviews Susan Dunn’s Roosevelt’s Purge: How FDR Fought to Change the Democratic Party.”
Irwin on France’s role in the Great Depression
cafehayek.com
“In the latest EconTalk, Doug Irwin argues that France played a much larger role than previously thought in causing the Great Depression. We talk about how the gold standard worked and how French monetary policy forced deflation on the rest of the world.”
The Decline of Cursing
online.wsj.com
“Bad words, once glorious, have been emptied of meaning by common use, argues Jan Morris in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.”
The Weekend Interview with Scott Rasmussen: America’s Insurgent Pollster
online.wsj.com
“In the Wall Street Journal, OpinionJournal columnist John Fund interviews Scott Rasmussen, who says that understanding the tea party is essential to predicting what the country’s political scene will look like.”
Paul Johnson – The Quest For God – The ReAL Book Review
torenewamerica.com
I really like Gerard Reed’s book reviews; here’s one about British historian Paul Johnson’s new book entitled “The Quest for God”. I first became aware of Paul Johnson more than 20 years ago, when I became deeply influenced by Paul Johnson’s essay entitled “The Heartless Lovers of Humankind” (see http://www.fortfreedom.org/h11.htm).
The Fed Compounds Its Mistakes
online.wsj.com
“In The Wall Street Journal, Carnegie-Mellon University economist Allan H. Meltzer says the Federal Reserve shouldn’t deliberately use inflation to reduce unemployment.”
Diamond, Mortensen, Pissarides Share 2010 Nobel Economic Prize
bloomberg.com
“Peter Diamond, Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides shared the 2010 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for their work on the efficiency of recruitment and wage formation as well as labor-market regulation.”
Four Lions: The Absurdity of Terror
www.thepublicdiscourse.com
“In the British film Four Lions, five Muslim men from Sheffield, England—four from immigrant families along with an English convert—seek to break out of their ho-hum average-ness by doing something which they think will launch them into hero status in their community.They plot a terrorist attack in the name of “jihad” in the U.K. In this farcical film, black satire meets terror-jihad and it is a match made almost in heaven. The would-be jihadists, however, end their lives only in tragedy, not in paradise.”
The MBA Oath
www.tutor2u.net
“At a time when capitalism, free markets, corporate greed, (WallStreet 2), bankers’ bonuses, is making headlines, here is the MBA Oath. The oath is a voluntary pledge for graduating MBAs and current MBAs to “create value responsibly and ethically’.”
Joe Queenan on Jimmy Carter’s Addiction to Writing Books
online.wsj.com
“The American people wanted Jimmy Carter out of office in the worst way, and to this day they are paying the price. If we had to do it all over again, I think a lot of people would vote to amend the Constitution and allow presidents to run for five, six—as many terms as they wanted. That wouldn’t leave them much spare time to write books.”
Assorted Links (10/9/2010)
Here ‘s a list of articles that I have been reading lately:
Revolt of the Accountants
online.wsj.com
“Washington is turning America into Paperwork Nation, writes Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal.”
The End of Free Trade?
online.wsj.com
“High tariffs and currency wars cost us big in the 1930s. We can avoid making the same mistakes again, writes Douglas A. Irwin.”
Bad Policies Push U.S. in Wrong Direction
www.cato.org
“Policies that lead to higher taxes, more debt, socialized health care, costly regulations, protectionism, and unstable money undermine U.S. economic strength and frustrate the natural equilibrating function that characterizes a dynamic market system based on freely determined prices, the rule of law, and sound money.”
The Battle for the Future
www.creators.com
“For most of the life of America, and when it grew fastest, government spent just a few hundred dollars per person. Today, the federal government alone spends $10,000.”
Sex, and Studying It, Is Complicated – The Numbers Guy – WSJ
blogs.wsj.com
“A new study offers fascinating glimpses into the sexual life of Americans, and also raises some statistical conundrums.”
The Economic Way of Thinking: Jobs Report Friday
wot.typepad.com
“With it being another jobs report Friday this morning, it seems like as good a time as any to remind readers of where we are with respect to unemployment compared to where Team Obama said we would be by now.”
The Facebook Searchers
www.nytimes.com
“”The Social Network” is spot on with its parsing of who wins and loses in our information economy and hypercompetitive meritocracy.”
Charles Krauthammer – The Colbert Democrats
www.washingtonpost.com
“His comedy in Washington marked the end for the 111th Congress.”
The Protectionist Instinct
online.wsj.com
In the Wall Street Journal, Emory Professor Paul Rubin writes that political support for free trade is a remarkable achievement of civic education—one threatened by our weak economy.
Obama Pulls Down His Party
online.wsj.com
“In the Wall Street Journal, Wonder Land columnist Daniel Henninger writes that the president’s approval ratings, like George W. Bush’s, are sinking his party’s congressional candidates.”
Toward a New American Century
online.wsj.com
“Michael Milken writes in The Wall Street Journal that immigration reform, investments in human capital, and better housing policy can help restore U.S. economic leadership.”
Austerity or prosperity?
cafehayek.com
“When you ask Keynesians for empirical evidence of how government spending creates prosperity, their best and most frequently cited answer is how World War II ended the Depression–a massive, increase in deficit-financed government spending. But as Robert Higgs has pointed out, the sharp decrease in unemployment that resulted was not due to the magic of some Keynesian multiplier but rather from conscription—forcing Americans into the Army.”
Elitism and Judicial Supremacy
www.thepublicdiscourse.com
“For years, I have been working on the problem of judicial supremacy—the idea that the courts have ultimate control of the Constitution. Judicial supremacy is a problem because the explanations offered by those who wish to justify it really don’t work. The Constitution certainly doesn’t justify it.”
Taxes and Presidential Math
www.american.com
“Let’s compare the size of the tax cuts to the total amount of spending over the next ten years and see how ‘drastically’ it would expand the deficit.”
So Maybe Sexy Media Doesn’t Lead to Teen Sex?
freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com
“A new study (summarized here) casts doubt on the popular notion that exposure to sex in the media is linked to earlier sexual activity.”
www.project-syndicate.org
“Now that gold has crossed the magic $1,000 barrier, some investors evidently believe that, like the stock market when the Dow Jones index hit 1,000, the price can increase ten-fold. What was true for the alchemists of yore remains true today: gold and reason are often difficult to reconcile.”
Gallup Delivers a Stunner – WSJ.com
online.wsj.com
“John Fund writes in The Wall Street Journal that the real historical parallel may be 1894 when Republicans took 100 seats.”
Green Supremacists
online.wsj.com
“James Taranto on an environmentalist fantasy of violent totalitarianism.”
Europe’s Choice on Conscience Protection « Public Discourse
www.thepublicdiscourse.com
“This Thursday the Council of Europe, a transnational body created in 1949 to promote democracy and human rights, will vote on a resolution and series of recommendations on conscience protection. Americans, who faced similar issues during the debate over the health care overhaul, will find much of interest in the resolution.”
Review & Outlook: Of Scoundrels and Speech
online.wsj.com
“The Wall Street Journal writes that the First Amendment protects even jerks.”
Fouad Ajami: Pax Americana and the New Iraq – WSJ.com
online.wsj.com
“In the Wall Street Journal, Fouad Ajami writes that Iraq’s Shiites, especially, have a healthy fear of Iran and a desire to keep Persian power at bay.”
President Obama’s ‘Rap Palate’
online.wsj.com
“In the Wall Street Journal, Thomas Chatterton Williams asks why President Obama praises violent, misogynistic hip-hop stars.”
Obama Administration Has Been An ‘Academic Exercise’
blog.investors.com
“A day after President Obama declared that his administration is not “some academic exercise,” Lawrence Summers announced plans to step down as director of the president’s National Economic Council and return to Harvard University. Christina Romer just left her post as head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers to go back to the University of California, Berkeley. The current administration has suffered from a historic lack of private-sector experience, from Obama on down. There’s almost no one on the White House payroll who’s actually ever had to meet a payroll.”
Assorted Links (10/5/2010)
Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading lately:
Evidence of Solar Scientists Raise Fears of Imminent Ice Age
www.suite101.com “New study by American solar experts identifies a sharp fall in sunspot activity since 2007 that fits the hallmarks of a soon arriving ice age.” (This is not an Onion article! Hat tip to my Baylor colleague Dave VanHoose for pointing it out to me…).
The Bill Gates Income Tax
online.wsj.com
“In the Wall Street Journal, Arthur Laffer writes that if Washington’s most famous billionaires are really worried about their state’s finances, they’d write personal checks to the government and leave everyone else alone.”
Review & Outlook: ‘Essential’ Bailouts
online.wsj.com
Notwithstanding political rhetoric to the contrary, this article explains how the recently passed Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform law enables a “new” system of bailouts. Specifically, “…under the new law, firms deemed too big to fail by the new Financial Stability Oversight Council can be protected from bankruptcy, if regulators so desire, and instead put into an alternative process managed by the FDIC. The idea is to provide the firm with taxpayer cash that would not be available in a bankruptcy, and then try to recover the taxpayer’s money over time from sales of the company’s assets.”
Book review: Adam Smith
online.wsj.com
“Jeffrey Collins reviews Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life, by Nicholas Phillipson.”
How to Cut Carbon Emissions
www.youtube.com
This video is quite graphic in its violence and ironically comes off as rather Orwellian. Apparently one is only entitled to adopt what the filmmaker defines as the “consensus” (groupthink) opinion, and if you happen to deviate in any way from this opinion, then no pressure… you die a gruesome death… See http://bit.ly/do8wK4 for the Guardian’s (not surprisingly) favorable assessment of the video in an article entitled “There Will be Blood”.
The Trade and Tax Doomsday Clocks
online.wsj.com
“Donald Luskin writes in The Wall Street that tariffs against China and failure to extend the Bush-era tax cuts would repeat the worst mistakes of the Great Depression.”
Big Tax Breaks Beget Small Investments – Why the American Jobs Creation Act lowered taxes but failed
insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu
“The American Jobs Creation Act (AJCA) of 2004 temporarily lowered the tax rate paid on income that American firms bring back from their foreign subsidiaries to the United States. Congress said it gave businesses this tax break in order to stimulate domestic investment, and indeed, during the two year window more than $300 billion was repatriated to the United States in response to the law. However, according to research by Mitchell Petersen, a professor of finance at the Kellogg School of Management, many of the firms made little incremental domestic investment. In addition, the law resulted in a substantial tax savings for many multinational businesses and a huge loss to the U.S. Treasury.”
Valuing the Government Guarantee – Determining the U.S. government’s liability for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu
Not surprisingly “Fannie and Freddie are enormous obligations for the U.S. government.” Two Northwestern University finance professors (Robert McDonald and Deborah Lucas) derive a set of empirically robust estimates to this effect!
First Among Equals? – Prime ballot position improves a candidate’s chances of winning office
insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu
“Specialists in the mechanics of voting have long recognized that the order in which candidates’ names appear on a ballot influences voters’ decisions. Typically, candidates listed at the top of a ballot earn a greater share of the vote than they would receive in any other position, regardless of their policies and personalities… the first listing on the ballot also increases a candidate’s chances of actually winning office—by almost five percentage points.”
A Man for All Factions
www.nytimes.com
“President Obama has managed the difficult feat of alienating both sides of the Democratic Party at the same time.”
Gene Fama and David Booth on the Future of Money Management
From the Fama/French Forum blogsite, “This video, recorded at the Chicago Booth 2010 Management Conference, features Eugene Fama and David Booth providing insights into what lies ahead for active and passive money management.”