A couple weeks ago the Federal Reserve announced results of the latest Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR), aka stress test, for large banks. The stress scenario included 13% unemployment, a 50% drop in stock […]
Read moreDan Walters has a piece on California’s proposed licensing of interior designers, and I recommend you read it. Here’s his concluding paragraphs: Is there any public interest need for such licensing? If an interior designer botches […]
Read moreLast week the Federal Reserve released the Flow of Funds (FOF) report for the quarter ended December 31, 2012. The report showed that household sector net worth increased by $1.2 trillion during the quarter to […]
Read moreOne of the more revered rules of thumb in retirement planning is that retirees can be comfortable in spending 4% per year of their accumulated net worth. While the origin of this rule is not […]
Read moreBrian Caplan was writing about the Charter Cities, which he likes as a second-best choice because: The first-best solution to global poverty, therefore, is for the First World to allow much higher levels of immigration. Unfortunately, […]
Read moreVeronique de Rugy is a provocative woman, and a smart one. Here’s what she said in a piece on women: Improving the lot of American women means lowering marginal tax rates, abolishing many workplace regulations, […]
Read moreThe headline is “AP: Wells Fargo customers soon will pay $7 checking account fee.” It’s accompanied by a picture of Wells Fargo’s CEO, a picture that makes him look like he eats babies for breakfast. […]
Read moreI recently had a piece on immigration a San Diego’s Union Tribune. It is about how an increase in legal immigration could be an economic spark, and I thought I was the only one thinking […]
Read moreEconomists assume that people attempt to smooth consumption over time. The data are consistent with this assumption. If you follow a cohort of people over a number of years, you will observe that their income […]
Read moreVeronique De Rugy at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center has a nice piece Debt Grows at a Faster Rate Than Economy for Foreseeable Future. My working definition of sustainability: when something is growing slower than the economy, […]
Read moreShelly Sullivan has a piece, Cap-and-trade is not a budget solution, in Capital Weekly. It’s well worth reading. She’s correct, of course, but she fails to mention a key p0int: When most economists support cap-and-trade schemes, the […]
Read moreThe FDIC’s quarterly banking report, QBR, came out yesterday. This report contains one of the CERF Indicators, which are a set of special economic indicators that we began tracking in the aftermath of the “Great […]
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