James Kwak is a former management consultant and software entrepreneur and is currently a co-author of The Baseline Scenario, an economics blog, and a student at the Yale Law School. He worked at McKinsey and Company, Ariba, and Guidewire Software, which he co-founded in 2001. Guidewire develops software for insurance companies and has customers among the largest insurers on five continents. Prior to working at McKinsey, James received a Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley.

Recent Blog Posts by James Kwak

• The Cost of (Equity) Capital May 6th, 2013
• Can You Say “Bubble”? May 1st, 2013
• Are Reinhart and Rogoff Right Anyway? April 19th, 2013
• Memo to Employers: Stop Wasting Your Employees’ Money April 3rd, 2013
• Gee Whiz, Incentives Matter March 26th, 2013
• The Importance of Excel February 11th, 2013
• The Political Implications of America’s Oil & Gas Boom – James Kwak Interview January 4th, 2013
• Entitlements Scare Tactics December 5th, 2012
• Social Security and the National Debt November 29th, 2012
• If Entitlement Programs Are Your Top Priority, the Fiscal Cliff Is Your Friend November 14th, 2012
• New Threat to the Financial System: Gravity November 5th, 2012
• The Effects of Golden Parachutes October 26th, 2012
• Incentive Effects of Higher Wages October 24th, 2012
• Financial Lobby: Stupid or Disingenuous? You Decide October 23rd, 2012
• Luck, Wealth, and Richard Posner October 17th, 2012
• Why Taxes Should Pay for Health Care October 15th, 2012
• 43.4 = 30.9? October 10th, 2012
• The Gift That Keeps on Giving September 18th, 2012
• Simple or Complex September 17th, 2012
• No There There September 11th, 2012
• Small Government or Smallish-Sort-of-Mediumish-Nicer-Better Government August 14th, 2012
• Bad Advice August 6th, 2012
• When Did The Economist Become Comically Stupid? August 2nd, 2012
• The One-Sided Deficit Debate July 31st, 2012
• Can Financial Regulation Be Fixed? July 25th, 2012
• The ObamaCare Tax on the Middle Class July 6th, 2012
• Pure Spite July 3rd, 2012
• The ‘Me, Too’ Party July 2nd, 2012
• Who Wants Big Banks? June 28th, 2012
• Once More, With Feeling* June 12th, 2012
• Facebook’s Long-Term Problem June 4th, 2012
• Why Markets Won’t Fix JPMorgan May 17th, 2012
• Regression to the Mean, JPMorgan Edition May 14th, 2012
• Bad Dividend Math May 10th, 2012
• Social Security Matters May 8th, 2012
• About That State and Local Tax Deduction April 18th, 2012
• Mitt Romney Still Can’t Do Arithmetic April 17th, 2012
• The Conventional Wisdom of Tax Reform April 15th, 2012
• The Incredible, Magically Metamorphosing Taxpayer-Subsidized Executive Perk April 12th, 2012
• The Impossibility of Defense Cuts April 9th, 2012
• Insurance or Redistribution? March 30th, 2012
• Americans Like Regulation March 13th, 2012
• Greg Mankiw’s Contorted Defense of Mitt Romney March 7th, 2012
• Invisible Handouts and Anti-Government Conservatives March 5th, 2012
• Democrats and the Bush Tax Cuts March 4th, 2012
• Beware of ‘Centrists’ Bearing Consensus March 2nd, 2012
• Executive Compensation: Some Things Never Change February 29th, 2012
• How Much Do Taxes Matter? February 28th, 2012
• Health-Care Costs and Climate Change February 20th, 2012
• Denial or Principle? February 17th, 2012
• Reports of Wall Street’s Death February 13th, 2012
• What Expanded Safety Net? February 13th, 2012
• Mark Zuckerberg and Tax Policy February 9th, 2012
• Private Equity and ‘Job Creation’ February 2nd, 2012
• What Is Private Equity? February 1st, 2012
• What Did the SEC Really Do in 2004? January 31st, 2012
• Department of “Duh” January 20th, 2012
• The End of the Blog? January 18th, 2012
• State of Nature December 28th, 2011
• More on Long-Term Care Insurance December 22nd, 2011
• The Private Insurance Market December 12th, 2011
• What Government Aid? December 7th, 2011
• Our Health Care System, Compared November 9th, 2011
• The More You Pay, the Less You Get October 17th, 2011
• Bathtubs for Beginners October 13th, 2011
• Straight Out of Antiquity October 10th, 2011
• Wall Street and Silicon Valley October 10th, 2011
• How Big Is the Long-Term Debt Problem? October 3rd, 2011
• Should Social Security Be Progressive? September 27th, 2011
• Ben Bernanke Doesn’t Get the Message August 30th, 2011
• A Foray into Monetary Policy and Tangentially Related Speculations August 18th, 2011
• Barack Obama and Harry Potter August 11th, 2011
• S&P Ratings Destroy Information August 10th, 2011
• Understanding the Budget Deficits July 26th, 2011
• The Weirdness of 10-Year Deficit Reduction July 21st, 2011
• So What? July 18th, 2011
• Long-Term Budget Forecasts for Beginners July 5th, 2011
• Not All Businessmen Are Smart, You Know June 7th, 2011
• Who Created This Mess? June 3rd, 2011
• Moment of Blather April 7th, 2011
• Convenient Arguments March 28th, 2011
• Two Cakes March 21st, 2011
• Conventional Meaninglessness February 23rd, 2011
• Is Economics the Problem? February 22nd, 2011
• $1.30 > $1.00 February 13th, 2011
• Is Happiness Conservative? February 9th, 2011
• Does Behavioral Economics Undermine the Welfare State? February 8th, 2011
• Fannie and Freddie: My Most Libertarian Post Ever January 31st, 2011
• Mittens or Dinner? January 27th, 2011
• Deficit Hawkoprite Watch January 20th, 2011
• Disclosure Rules for Economists January 5th, 2011
• Symbols and Substance December 21st, 2010
• Why Citigroup? December 19th, 2010
• Who Wanted What? December 13th, 2010
• More on the Tax Deal December 9th, 2010
• How Are the Kids? Unemployed, Underwater, and Sinking November 24th, 2010
• Shape-Shifting Deficit Hawks October 28th, 2010
• Food and Finance October 25th, 2010
• Finance and the Housing Bubble October 19th, 2010
• Once More into the Breach . . . October 18th, 2010
• Bad Arguments Against Tax ‘Increases’ September 28th, 2010
• Why the Education Gap? September 6th, 2010
• Hedge Fund Blindness September 1st, 2010
• Democracy in America August 27th, 2010
• Housing in Ten Words August 23rd, 2010
• Management Consulting Myths August 23rd, 2010
• The Tilted Playing Field August 2nd, 2010
• Why Agencies Get Things Terribly Wrong July 12th, 2010
• Regulation vs. Structural Change May 26th, 2010
• Constructive Populism May 19th, 2010
• Financial Reform for the Long Term May 6th, 2010
• What Did Robert Rubin Think About Derivatives? April 22nd, 2010
• SEC Charges Goldman with Fraud April 16th, 2010
• The Ongoing Battle Against Error and Hypocrisy March 30th, 2010
• Business Economists on the CFPA March 11th, 2010
• Krugman: No Bill Is Better Than a Weak Bill March 1st, 2010
• Why Is Wal-Mart Paying Retail Prices? February 17th, 2010
• Greg Mankiw on the Deficit February 16th, 2010
• Budget Sense and Nonsense February 2nd, 2010
• More from “The Lion” January 12th, 2010
• Yet More Financial Innovation January 5th, 2010
• No to Bernanke January 4th, 2010
• The Power of Conventional Wisdom December 30th, 2009
• If Wall Street Ran the Airlines… December 22nd, 2009
• Small Steps and Health Care Costs December 18th, 2009
• A Few Words on Health Care Reform and Medicare Buy-In December 11th, 2009
• The Importance of Capital Requirements December 7th, 2009
• Details November 30th, 2009
• Government Debt Hysteria November 22nd, 2009
• The AIG-Maiden Lane III Controversy November 20th, 2009
• Slow Cat, Fast Mouse November 18th, 2009
• Note to Jamie Dimon: Repeating Something Doesn’t Make It True November 13th, 2009
• Productivity and Layoffs November 9th, 2009
• Do Smart, Hard-Working People Deserve to Make More Money? November 2nd, 2009
• Tax Credits, Screwdrivers, and Supply and Demand Curves October 27th, 2009
• Cognitive Dissonance and Global Macroeconomics October 19th, 2009
• Who Needs Big Banks? October 12th, 2009
• Fed Chest-Thumping for Beginners October 5th, 2009
• Back-Door Resolution Authority September 30th, 2009
• Financial Regulation, the Pessimistic View September 21st, 2009
• Causes: Too Much Debt August 28th, 2009
• Medicare and the Public Option August 25th, 2009
• Fun with Derivatives August 24th, 2009
• A CFPA Research Brief August 17th, 2009
• What Do the People Want? August 10th, 2009
• The Problem That Won’t Go Away August 7th, 2009
• Community Banks, Part Three August 5th, 2009
• The Value of (Not Having) the Public Plan July 31st, 2009
• The Problem with Profits July 31st, 2009
• CEO Psychology July 21st, 2009
• More and Better July 20th, 2009
• More on Spotting Bubbles July 17th, 2009
• Little Hoovers, Part-Time Employment, and Me July 6th, 2009
• The Cost of Life June 30th, 2009
• Efficient Markets and Innovation June 22nd, 2009
• TARP for Rating Agencies June 19th, 2009
• TARP for Regulators! June 19th, 2009
• Annoying Bank Propaganda June 8th, 2009
• The Little Pension Funds That Could? June 5th, 2009
• The View from the Top June 3rd, 2009
• Regulatory Capital Arbitrage for Beginners May 31st, 2009
• “I Have 13 Bankers in My Office” May 27th, 2009
• CAFE, Part Two May 22nd, 2009
• Geithner Plan vs. Paulson Plan May 22nd, 2009
• The Economics of CAFE May 21st, 2009
• Economics of Sick Days May 20th, 2009
• Bankers Will Be Boys May 19th, 2009
• More Bank Balance Sheets for Beginner May 18th, 2009
• Law, Economics, and Regulation May 15th, 2009
• Insurance and Health Insurance May 12th, 2009
• Grading on a Curve May 8th, 2009
• Failure Is Good May 7th, 2009
• The Need for New Antitrust Laws May 4th, 2009
• The Importance of Battlefield Nuclear Weapons April 30th, 2009
• Pierre Bourdieu, Tim Geithner, and Cultural Capital April 28th, 2009
• IMF Emerging Markets Veteran on the U.S. April 25th, 2009
• The Missed Opportunity April 22nd, 2009
• More Accounting Games April 20th, 2009
• Our Fate Is in Their Hands? April 20th, 2009
• Financial Innovation for Beginners April 19th, 2009
• New Day, New Bank, Same Story April 17th, 2009
• Unions and Business April 14th, 2009
• Is Goldman Really That Good? April 14th, 2009
• Why Bail Out Life Insurers? April 12th, 2009
• $3.5 Million or $5 Million? April 12th, 2009
• Inflation Expectations for Beginners April 9th, 2009
• Baseline Scenario, April 7, 2009 April 7th, 2009
• Making Creditors Suffer April 5th, 2009
• Taking Care of Our Grandchildren April 2nd, 2009
• The Mark-to-Market Myth April 2nd, 2009
• The New Masters of the Universe April 1st, 2009
• Big and Small March 27th, 2009
• Payback Time March 27th, 2009
• Frog, Toad, Cookies, and Financial Regulation March 26th, 2009
• Potential Constitutional Obstacles to Nationalization and the Economic Rescue Plan March 26th, 2009
• What’s Plan B? March 25th, 2009
• What Is a Non-Bank? March 25th, 2009
• Banks Find New Way to Hold Up Government March 25th, 2009
• The Cultural Costs of Bailout Nation March 24th, 2009
• Economics, Politics, Outrage, and the Media March 23rd, 2009