This endeavor has been constructed upon a foundation of a few themes.  Chief among these is the stupidity and self-importance of poor white folks.  Such behavior is explained in magnificent detail by Robert Frank (whom I've recently seen on BookTV, and he's not Sy Hersh's age, after all; ki… Read full post »

That's Bureau of Labor Statistics.  The headline over the column in my dead trees version of the NY Times reads:  "Stagnant Job Growth is Expected in Report".  Yet, the number this morning was glorious.  How does that happen?  Why did the numbers come in so much better than e… Read full post »

The Case-Shiller house price index is out again, and it's down.  Reports are that it is expected to decline for yet a while.  Well, D'oh!!!!  House prices can only move up with median income moving up.  How difficult is that to figure out? Read full post »

Many, many years ago I saw a piece on the TV, which showed the effects of population.  It was a closed cage, a few feet on a side, such that it fit in a laboratory room.  In it were rats.  The point of the experiment was to document the changes, if… Read full post »

Well, the Flation Numbers came out this week.  And, as usual, the Prosperity Through Austerity And Inflation's The Issue folks can't be happy.  Here they are:
Core PPI 0.3%
Core CPI 0.1%
PPI -0.1%
CPI  0.0%

I'll leave it to the reader to see the forest and the trees.  All that free mon… Read full post »

By now everyone with a functioning brain has heard of the Mitten Man's taxing problem.  Today's NY Times has more stories (some Walter Mitty specific, others on the general topic) than I want to link; just go read it.  Even if you're not subscribed, you're allowed a few (don't recall the… Read full post »

Drew Conway is my kind of guy:  a spook.  Now, before any of the uber-PC folk get their backs up, an alternate definition of the word:  colloquial for intelligence operative, origination unknown.  I don't always put it on my resume, but I spent some time in the 1980's in Jack Ande… Read full post »

I wrote the following as a broadside reply to a post on one of the blogs, but a) it's really too long for that, and b) it deserves to stand on its own.  I'll leave the last word to the last commenter over there.


The continuing fascination among freshwater economists, and non-economist… Read full post »

I was right, right, right.

Not that this makes me feel so much better.  Quants began to invade economics departments in the early 1970's.  I was there and saw the jettisoning of economic understanding for algebra, preferably in support of partial differential equations and Bayesian statistic… Read full post »

One of those theses I'd been considering writing about just became redundant.  And that's a good thing.  For various reasons, none of which I can pinpoint, I'd been building on the idea that our problem is just energy.  I don't know that this is novel, but it's not been the basis… Read full post »

I, along with a considerable chunk of saltwater economists, have been harping on the history of Japan from 1990, as an object lesson for the USofA and The Great Recession.  So, imagine my surprise when today's NY Times runs a piece on the front page of the Review section claiming that… Read full post »

I posted the following comment on Offensive Politics' post on its graphic presentation of Iowa results:

This post got referenced on Revolutions Analytics, and garnered a comment that the (default) HCL scale used by ggplot is faulty. I commented that the closeness of the vote is perfectly reflected in… Read full post »

I'm by no means a Cato Institute type, but a piece by one of their staff was linked from Groklaw.  It talks about the SOPA, and debunks the whole idea.  Nothing I hadn't long ago figured out, but it may be revelatory to those who don't do economics.

I don't recall, and… Read full post »

Not being a rapid Republican, I viewed the Iowa dance with detached amusement.  The farther out on the starboard wing they go, the better off the nation is.  At some point, even the averagely informed and intelligent will realize they're being taken for a ride.  Granted, we haven't yet… Read full post »

Yo ho ho, and a bottle rum!!  Six pieces of eight'll buy you a jug!

No, I didn't just get back from a Jack Sparrow movie (never seen one, actually).  What I did just finish is an AP feed, a copy is here, which didn't quite   go   all   the   way (thank… Read full post »

Krugman's hijacked my meme!!

I had intended to wrap up the year with a song, but before I do that, I have to claim vindication, since (for those who don't follow links) the title of the good doctor's column is "Keynes Was Right".  I'll drop him an email asking for props.  I'll… Read full post »

A comment on Can I Peak Your Interest, said, "there's also a basic supply and demand element to interest rates." (this guy).  For better or for worse, this is a common misconception, due to treating cash as a commodity.  It isn't.  As Adam Smith, the real one, asserted, it exists only… Read full post »

Well, may be I've got the spelling off.  But may be not.  The point of this essay is to debunk the conventional theory of interest, which asserts that interest is paid because savers want to be paid for the use of "their" money, and that they determine what the "real interest"… Read full post »

That I find more solace in quants than relational databases has always been true and that my view of RDBMS building remains at odds with many of the Kiddie Koders who run their various asylums, are not excuses for pandering to the knuckleheads who very nearly destroyed western civilization.  The… Read full post »

The sky is falling.  Oracle reported down, a bit, but, in particular, didn't report above expectations.  Larry has been sly for a long time, in setting guidance low enough that bettering it is a piece of cake.  Not this time.  As I type, it's down 15%, and news is that much… Read full post »

One of the points "for further research" as I used to say when I was an academic, in the Triage exercise was using social media to measure outcomes.  R has a library, twitteR, (yes, R folks tend to capitalize the letter at every opportunity), which retrieves some data.  I was at… Read full post »

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark"
-- Hamlet Act 1, Scene 4 (here for a synopsis)

Why quote Hamlet?  Today marked the start of public trading in Zynga, a (or *the*) Facebook gaming company.  To the consternation of some, it's falling as I write from the IPO price.  You can rea… Read full post »

The new CPI/PPI numbers are out here, for example (lines for Dec 15 and Dec 16).  As usual, we remain on the edge of outright deflation.  I posted another Fat Man short piece this week; that one was happenstance, I wasn't expecting confirmation to fall from the heavens like Manna.  Jes… Read full post »

I was doing some searching, looking for prior art on using Twitter, etc. to measure campaign event outcomes, when <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/">this 538 piece</a>, from today!, popped up.  Remember what I've been saying about Fatman in Famine?  Think I was… Read full post »

Yes, the title of this piece is intended to tickle the bottom of long term memory; sounds kind of familiar, I guess I should read it.  Alas, Elton John (so far as anyone knows) has nothing to do with Obambi.  Elton cared about a tiny dancer.

Obambi, last night, displayed a smidgeon… Read full post »