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Finance & Markets Channel: Latest Posts
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Finance & Markets
Volcker Rule Would Cause Irreparable Damage to the Muppets – and Much More Broadly
A major new research report – released this weekend by the renowned international consulting firm, IMS – finds conclusively that implementation of the proposed Volcker Rule would damage not just the irreplaceable Muppets but also “all children-oriented television or other media-based educational program content.” The logic in the report is straightforward and, quite frankly, compelling. [...]
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Finance & Markets
Weighing the Week Ahead: Can Job Growth Be Improved?
Many current economic and policy questions share a common theme: Jobs! Employment is a crucial indicator of the current economic situation, but future consumer spending also depends on jobs growth. Corporate profits and stock prices are similarly linked. And finally, we can depend on politicians to keep the issue in focus, especially in an election [...]
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Finance & Markets
International Trade, an Enhanced Petroleum Transportation Network, and Gasoline Prices
Don’t expect a big impact on gasoline prices from opening up an oil pipeline to the coast. I am a little late to this debate [0] [1] [2], but I wanted to highlight something that is clear from basic international trade theory. Opening up to international trade changes relative prices, and in fact raises some [...]
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Finance & Markets
Window Dressing or Something More?
Many people seem to be crediting the market’s resilience to factors such as end of the month/quarter window dressing. I remain unconvinced. There has been a solid bid under this markets since October, goosed every time Ben Bernanke thinks about any form of liquidity. If he so much as eases himself into a hot bath, [...]
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Finance & Markets
Break Up the Big Banks, Says the Dallas Fed
As the Supreme Court shows every sign of throwing out “Obamacare” and leaving 30 million Americans without health insurance, another drama is being played out in the quiet corridors of the Federal Reserve system that may affect even more of us. Taxpayers will be on the hook for another giant Wall Street bailout, and the [...]
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Finance & Markets
A Rational Reason for High Oil Prices
“There is no rational reason for high oil prices,” writes Ali Naimi, Saudi Arabian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, in today’s Financial Times. Well, I can think of one– if oil prices were lower, the world would want to consume more than is currently being produced. The graph below plots total world oil production [...]
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RGE Analysts
For Every Seller There’s a Buyer
Whenever you see “money going into/out of XYZ”, your bullshit detector should go off — it usually indicates a lack of understanding of markets. Day-to-day, bonds and stocks and currencies TRADE. That is why many are on exchanges — the word is not an accident, as securities CHANGE owners. Now, foreigners can buy (be going [...]
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Finance & Markets
Complexity, Context, Probability & Bias
No one seems to remember the second part of Occam’s razor as rumored1 to be stated by Albert Einstein: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” That is an issue I am encountering quite frequently these days. We see it in discussions about markets, politics, sports, economics, indeed, just about any [...]
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Finance & Markets
Bill Gross on Risk Seeking Return and Safe Carry
Bill Gross is out with his monthly commentary. Because his points are central to the discussion of policy and markets right now, I am going to write this weekly newsletter commentary outside the paywall. Below are the key points as summarized at the outset of Gross’ column: How do we deliver in this New Normal [...]
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Finance & Markets
‘The Only Winning Move Is Not to Play’—the Insanity of the Regulatory Race to the Bottom
The plot of the movie WarGames (1983) involves a slacker hacker (played by Matthew Broderick) who starts playing the game “Global Thermonuclear War” with Joshua, a Department of Defense (DoD) supercomputer that has been given partial control by DoD of our nuclear forces. The game prompts Joshua, who has been programmed to win games, to [...]
