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Author Archives: Felix
Hedge Funds to Help Prevent a Market Implosion
Distressed-asset funds reduce market volatility, and
act as an all-important source of bids when most investors want to sell. Hedge
funds aren’t always a source of risk and volatility
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Posted in hedge funds
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Why a Cap-And-Trade System Beats a Carbon Tax
If you want to be certain about reducing carbon emissions, and you want to do it in the most economically efficient way possible, then cap-and-trade is the way to go.
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The Microsoft Giveaway: Less Than Meets the Eye
Microsoft’s plan to sell software for $3 in developing nations is better for Microsoft than it is for developing nations.
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The Fannie & Freddie Bailout: Less Than Meets the Eye
Yesterday’s announcement from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac won’t help most subprime borrowers.
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The Downside of M&A: Monopolies
Researchers recently asked 100 of the country’s top antitrust lawyers whether mergers between firms in the same industry are more likely to be approved than they were a decade ago. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being “significantly more favorable,” the average score was 4.9.
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Towards Universal Telephone Access
It’s cheap to give everybody on the planet access to a telephone.
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Posted in development
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The $2,500 Car
Two companies are looking to build a car in India which will retail for less than $3,000.
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When Homeowners Who Can Pay, Don’t Pay
It’s one thing to make big mortgage payments in order to pay off a house. It’s another thing entirely to make mortgage payments after the house has already been sold.
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Can Wolfowitz Just Resign Already?
Worldbankpresident.org has been gloriously resuscitated with everything you ever wanted to know about Paul Wolfowitz, Shaha Riza, the long list of people calling for Wolfowitz’s ouster, and the much shorter list of Wolfowtiz defenders.
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Why the Size of the Derivatives Market is Cause for Worry
When a market is $300 trillion in size, even a tiny error can have systemic consequences.
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The BlackBerry is Closed
The Great
BlackBerry Outage of 2007 continues, it would seem, and I’m sure that Steve
Jobs has a smile on his face right now, since his iPhone
can use any wifi network to send and receive emails. The irony is that Jobs,
given the choice, has always opted for closed, proprietary sytems over open
ones.
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Credit Where Credit Is Due
Citi blames high interest rates for its weak results; JP Morgan thanks low interest rates for its good ones.
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Derivatives: Eisinger Responds
Jesse Eisinger explains why it makes sense to worry about the derivatives markets.
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Tax Tall People!
Tall people have many advantages in life, and not just when attending rock
concerts. They earn more money, they’re more likely to become president, they
can take stairs two at a time when they’re in a hurry. It’s not fair. We
should tax them!
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How Risky is the Derivatives Market?
Derivatives perform much more good than harm, in areas from agriculture to catasrophe insurance. The risks are entirely theoretical; the benefits are very real.
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How Selfish is Robert Rubin?
Yes, Robert Rubin did very well out of his own economic policies. That’s a good thing.
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Arguments Over Carbon Emissions
It’s a good idea not to go into too much detail why we should reduce carbon emissions.
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Playing the Carry Trade
The idea behind the carry
trade is simple: you take (or borrow) money in a low-yielding country, such
as Japan or Switzerland, and then invest that money in a high-yielding country,
such as Britain, Iceland, or Brazil. This is a strategy which normally works until it doesn’t.
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Congress Eyes Hedge-Fund Tax Loophole
While US savers are generally allowed to save no more than $20,000 tax-free per year, hedge-fund managers can keep tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in income without paying any tax on it for years.
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£1 = $2
Those of us with a vaguely transatlantic bent have been mentally doubling UK
prices (or halving US ones) for some time, but now it’s official: the
British pound is worth more than $2.
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The $5 Trillion at the Base of the Pyramid
For an interesting long-tail play, it might be worth thinking not about houses which sell for $200 million, but rather about houses which sell for $2,000.
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Quantifying Subprime Losses
Fremont sells more subprime loans at a loss of just 3.5%.
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SEC Official: Insider Trading Makes for Efficient Markets
In a world of important pricing efficiency, you want insiders trading because the price will be more efficient. That is as it should be.
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The H1-B Fiasco
Compared to most immigrants, holders of H1-B visas are highly educated, pay lots of taxes, and benefit both the economy and their local communities. The cost of educating them has been borne elsewhere, and now they want to give the benefits to the US. As a nation of immigrants, it should be welcoming them with open arms.
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Power Laws and Luxury Goods
A new index from Merrill Lynch is a bet that the rich will continue to get richer, and that as and when they do so, they’re likely to splurge on ostentatious displays of wealth from established brand-names.
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