Previously published on August 29, 2015 on NewGeography.com I recently made a couple of tweets/Facebook posts pointing out that market declines threaten California’s budget surplus. I referenced articles in the WSJ and Bloomberg, and I thought the observation was non-controversial—almost banal. So I was surprised at the feedback. One person asked why. Another said it… Read more

In general, we expect that a beginner or novice in a field is likely to be out-performed by a seasoned veteran. We would be surprised if a beginner could build a better house than a skilled carpenter, or if an amateur boxer could knock out a pro. Yet, something like this may be true in… Read more

Bryan Caplan at George Mason University and the Library of Economics and Liberty has a couple of posts on medical screening and treatment. First, Caplan shares data on prostate cancer.  It turns out that screening does nothing good for the patient: That’s right.  Statistically speaking, prostate cancer screening is worthless.  Over the course of ten years,… Read more

I’ve argued for some time that services for the wealthy will be a major source of Coastal California jobs in coming years.  As people become more wealthy, they increase their specialization.  That is, wealthy people specialize in consumption and whatever it is that brings them their wealth.  That may mean specializing in consumption and in… Read more

Several years ago I was asked to speak at a dinner meeting for some customers of a large insurance company.  It so happens that another economist, Gene Stanaland, was the featured speaker in the afternoon session.  Gene turned out to be a professional speaker who bills himself as the “Will Rogers of Economics.”  He was… Read more

During the buildup to the financial crisis, mortgage underwriting standards weakened dramatically.  Although there have long been loans made with low or no down payments, or to people with FICO scores below 660 or even 600, or to people who did not wish to provide full documentation, it was rare to find loans made that… Read more

People are always writing about the best places to to buy homes, retire, get a job, etc..   Only one problem, thought.  These are always backwards looking, and things change.  In this case, they changed before the report could by published: The (best) metropolitan area for flipping a house was Baltimore-Towson, Md., where the average… Read more

Financial innovations often involve complex quantitative models that can be used to perform difficult computations, like valuing complex derivatives, and to enable great new products and capabilities, like passive index fund investing, hedging interest rate or credit risk, or developing a sustainable financial plan.  But you have to be careful.  Sometimes the complexity inherent in… Read more

After writing about retirement savings and spending for the past couple of years, I thought it was about time to take a look at what others have written on these subjects; here is what I found. 4% Withdrawal Rate A seminal contribution to this literature was made by William Bengen (1994) with his analysis of… Read more

Ray Dalio is the founder of money manager Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund advisor on the planet.  One of Bridgewater’s claims to fame is the “all-weather portfolio” that is designed to perform reasonably well in any market environment.  The big idea is that there are four possible fundamental economic scenarios based on inflation and… Read more