Goldman’s Failure to Disclose
The big news in finance this week is that Goldman Sachs got busted – finally – for fraud related to those mortgage-backed bonds. At the heart of the Securities and Exchange Commission charges is the...
View ArticleGoldman Profited from Crisis – Shocking!
If someone is just finding out last week that Wall Street is profiting from the crisis it created, then I have only one question for them – "what rock have you been living under for the last two...
View ArticleWhat Jobs?
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 290,000 more jobs in the US this month than there were last month. Twenty percent of those jobs were added by the federal government. While the...
View ArticleMcClatchy-Medill: Real $timulating News
I saw this story in the Omaha World Herald last week: Benefits of stimulus bill spread unevenly over U.S. As I read through it, I became increasingly impressed. The journalists start off by laying out...
View ArticleCatching up to the Fed
It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly two years since we first wrote about the game of “hide the ball” that Junkmeister Ben Bernanke is playing. Finally, Congress is getting some admissions out of...
View ArticleThe Tax Cut that Killed California?
I studied with the Austrian economists at New York University. The Austrian school of economics (as contrasted to Keynesians or Chicago school economists) work with a theory about business cycles that...
View ArticleDebt Ceiling or Spending Limit?
We’re seeing a lot of debate in Washington about what is commonly referred to as the "national debt ceiling." This post is an attempt to shed some light – and provide some good resources for further...
View ArticleTransportation Infrastructure: Yankee Ingenuity Keeps California Moving
A friend was explaining some philosophy to me the other day and he used an analogy to make his point: If you can get a cannibal to use a knife and fork, is that progress? Of course, the answer is "no"....
View ArticleReplaced by a Machine
I love the Omaha World Herald – I read papers all over the world and this one is the best local paper I’ve seen. The bias is largely limited to the Opinion pages and they do original research on local...
View ArticleTransportation Aborted
Like most Americans, I was bombarded by sound-bites and blog-bytes surrounding an amendment to an Act of Congress that would require a woman to submit to and review the results of a trans-vaginal...
View ArticleOur Federal Government: "There You Go Again!"
Remember this? The fact remains that Congress has not passed a real federal budget since 1997 (“the first balanced budget in a generation”.) An “omnibus spending bill” was passed in April of 2009 but...
View ArticleHigh Frequency Trading Is Not Fast Enough
A new book by the original yellow journalist of Wall Street, Michael Lewis, initiated global coverage about the flaws of American capitalism. The culprit in Lewis’ new book is High Frequency Trading or...
View ArticleGovernments’ Oil Windfall
We are reading a lot about the windfall coming to consumers due to falling gas prices now that oil is under $50/barrel. But cheap energy also represents a windfall for governments, including...
View ArticleA Lifetime of Financial Advice for 2015
When household savings falls and household debt rises, “most people” are spending more than they make. When people find out I’m an economist, they often ask if I can explain why “most people” can’t...
View ArticleLobbying Pays Off 500-to-1
I suppose we should not be shocked: businesses that spend money for lobbying and campaign contributions get more favors from government than those that do not. I spent the weekend at Creighton...
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