Monthly Archives: August 2007

Why Cap-and-Trade is the Best Route to a Carbon Tax

Greg Mankiw has a
simple equation
:
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Posted in climate change | Comments Off on Why Cap-and-Trade is the Best Route to a Carbon Tax

Answering Three Questions on Climate Change

Paul Klemperer has three
unanswered questions on climate change
. I can’t answer them fully, of course,
but it might be useful to at least make a first-order approximation, or an attempt
at one.
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Of Course You Can Disprove Religion

And Eliezer Yudkowsky does it, wonderfully.

Posted in Not economics | Comments Off on Of Course You Can Disprove Religion

The Sâgë of Omaha

Berkshire Hathaway and Ikea could be a match made in heaven.
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Melted Cramer on Toast

Jim Cramer is the Britney Spears of the financial
punditocracy: famous for being famous, great at attracting attention in a trainwreck
kind of way, self-destructive and self-loathing,
and completely, utterly out of control.
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Posted in Media | Comments Off on Melted Cramer on Toast

Nardelli, Act 3

It’s both surprising and unsurprising that Nardelli has now popped up as
the
new CEO of Chrysler
.
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Posted in private equity | Comments Off on Nardelli, Act 3

When Hedge Fund Investors Lose Confidence

Jenny Anderson is
worried
that when hedge-fund investors get their monthly statements in July,
they’ll start to panic.
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Posted in hedge funds, personal finance | Comments Off on When Hedge Fund Investors Lose Confidence

Mexico’s Financial System: Strong, Not Weak

Joel Kurtzman has a rather needlessly
aggressive attack
on those inefficient Mexcians on the op-ed page of today’s
WSJ.
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Posted in emerging markets | Comments Off on Mexico’s Financial System: Strong, Not Weak

How to Make Aid Work

Are you a little bit bored of the "does aid work" debate? Well, so
is Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and in a tour de force 20-minute talk
at the end of TEDGlobal, she asked us all to get "a bit more sophisticated"
in terms of how we approach such questions.
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Posted in development | Comments Off on How to Make Aid Work

Was There a Murdoch “Jerk Premium”?

Dan Gross reckons
that Rupert Murdoch paid a "jerk premium" of "somewhere
between $760 million and $1.22 billion" to take over Dow Jones and the
Wall Street Journal. Anybody else, he says, could have bought it for less:
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Posted in Media, publishing | Comments Off on Was There a Murdoch “Jerk Premium”?

Countrywide Falls to Book Value

Dave Neubert is buying
shares in Countrywide
, and it seems he’s mainly looking at one crucial indicator:
the price-to-book ratio.
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Posted in housing, stocks | Comments Off on Countrywide Falls to Book Value

Subprime in Germany

Who or what is an IKB? I know there are lots of obscure European banks, but
IKB is obscure even by German standards. And somehow – really, no one
seems to have the foggiest notion how – IKB’s Rheinland Funding vehicle
seems to have contrived to amass an eye-popping €17 billion ($23 billion)
in US
subprime exposure
.
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Posted in banking, bonds and loans, hedge funds, housing | Comments Off on Subprime in Germany

Why Chuck Prince Should Embrace His Unexciting Side

No one, with the possible exception of Sandy Weill, has ever
been particularly impressed with Chuck Prince. But Citigroup’s
CEO has always seemed at least to be a feet-on-the-ground kind of guy, a safe
pair of hands for when the bank is going through regulatory storms.
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Why Bear Stearns Might Be Sold

Thanks to Helen Thomas for reminding
me
that I reckon a Bear Stearns takeover ain’t going to happen – or
at least that I thought
that
a month ago. But since the FT is revisiting
the issue
, it’s worth taking another look.
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Posted in banking | Comments Off on Why Bear Stearns Might Be Sold

The Lighter Side of Subprime

Subprime: it’s not just about ball-bearing
manufacturers
. It’s the
menthol cigarette of loans
.
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Posted in remainders | Comments Off on The Lighter Side of Subprime

BanXcard: Better Than Wal-Mart, Worse Than Credit Unions

I have mixed feelings about the BanXcard,
a new product which is indubitably better than the MoneyCard.
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Posted in banking, personal finance | Comments Off on BanXcard: Better Than Wal-Mart, Worse Than Credit Unions

Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s Lower Half Problem

Japanese newspapers call it a "lower half problem". Bill
Clinton
, Arnold Schwarzenegger, JFK
– there’s no shortage of prominent politicians who have it. And according
to Libération journalist Jean Quatremer, the next managing
director of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is no exception.
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Posted in IMF | Comments Off on Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s Lower Half Problem

Why Fed Funds Futures Might Not Reflect Fed Expectations

To
get an idea of where the market thinks that the Fed is going to be in six or
nine months, all you need to do is look at the Fed funds futures contract. Right?
Maybe
not
.
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Posted in derivatives, fiscal and monetary policy | Comments Off on Why Fed Funds Futures Might Not Reflect Fed Expectations

Mexico Immigration Datapoints of the Day

Two intriguing
datapoints
from YouNotSneaky today.
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Posted in labor | Comments Off on Mexico Immigration Datapoints of the Day

Why The Low Capital Gains Tax?

Former Fed vice chairman Alan Blinder doesn’t
get it
, and neither, frankly, do I.
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Posted in taxes | Comments Off on Why The Low Capital Gains Tax?

Sowood: Long Debt, Short Equity

Marc Andreessen made a lot of money last week, when he sold
his company
for $1.6 billion. But has he been losing a lot of money, too?
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Posted in hedge funds | Comments Off on Sowood: Long Debt, Short Equity

Wall Street, Fearless, Rates Blackstone a “Buy”

By
an astonishing coincidence
, the six banks with a "buy" rating
are the six of the seven who were also underwriters on the IPO.
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Posted in stocks | Comments Off on Wall Street, Fearless, Rates Blackstone a “Buy”

Time to Buy ETFs and Head to the Beach

A diverse
global ETF portfolio
can be put together with an overall expense ratio of
less than 0.15%
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Posted in personal finance | Comments Off on Time to Buy ETFs and Head to the Beach

How Securitization Arbitrages Bond-Market Inefficiencies

The bond market, dominated as it is by risk-averse bond investors, is simply not a perfectly efficient market.
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Posted in bonds and loans | Comments Off on How Securitization Arbitrages Bond-Market Inefficiencies

Why WSJ.com Should Be Free

Saul Hansell wonders
whether Rupert Murdoch should really make WSJ.com free from
the first day he owns it.

Of course he should.

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Posted in Media, publishing, technology | Comments Off on Why WSJ.com Should Be Free