Not Just A Pay Wall

The internet has been abuzz about the NYT’s new pay wall.  Basically, after reading 20 articles in a month, you need to pay for a subscription to keep on reading.  But there is one big exception:  You can read 5 articles a day from Google searches and an unlimited number of articles from social media, [...]

Good Time to Be Great

The interactive chart featured here is making the rounds on the web, because it tells a story about how the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, or it at least it seems to. 

The problem with that interpretation is that it is about income, not wealth.  Each year, the people in the [...]

If something can’t happen, will it?

A great article about systemic instability, financial markets, and the the deficit.  Here is one taste:

The Obama administration tells us that the government deficit is going to be well over $1 trillion a year for at least ten years. And that does not take into account the outlier years in the 2020s when the [...]

CustomEyes

Time to start reading science fiction, because the future is here.  Now, eye surgeons are getting more requests to customize patient’s eyes based on their life or lifestyles.

Julian Stevens, of Moorfields Eye Hospital, is an expert on laser refractive surgery. He has, in the past, offered tailored treatment for members of the special forces. [...]

The Dream is Dying

Is this the end of the American Dream?

Many have lived beyond their incomes simply because incomes have been outstripped by the costs of middle-class life. By the fall of 2008, most American workers were bringing home roughly the same weekly wages they had earned in 1983, after accounting for inflation.

via As Jobs Are [...]

Living the Dream

Today more than two-thirds of Americans own their own homes. Among whites, more than 75% are homeowners today.

Yet the story of how the dream became a reality is not one of independence, self-sufficiency, and entrepreneurial pluck. It’s not the story of the inexorable march of the free market. It’s a different kind of American [...]

I Must Be Taking Crazy Pills…

because this article about health-care actually make sense. (My comments in italics).

•Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair. (This IS unfair… it’s worth repeating).

[...]

The Government Can’t Count Right

Apparently our economy has been much slower than reported for years:

Growth: Why the Stats Are Misleading – BusinessWeek.

Modern Auctions

Auction technology has blossomed around the world, and called into existence a whole new industry, replete with firms, entrepreneurs, consultants, counter-consultants and even a few gunslingers. When the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Market Design Working Group held its first-ever meeting earlier this month, many of the stars were there, mostly economists, but a handful [...]

Financial Peer Presure

It seems investors might overestimate the ability of their peers to make sound decisions, a very convincing explanation for several of our recent economic crises.  In essence, I can should pay a lot for a mortgage backed security (or dot com stock, or bankrupt investment bank) because everybody else is (and everyone else should be [...]