Content tagged with "economics"
“This New York Times article has introduced me to something I didn’t know existed: litigation financing. Lawsuits are expensive, and investors will fund your legal fees if they think you can win, and then take a cut of the proceeds. Wall St. Bankrolls Ex-Executive as He Sues Over A.I.G. Bailout The…”
“This is an economic model used to reduce carbon emissions. A government sets a ‘cap’ on the total amount of emissions to be allowed, and they sell ‘permits’ or ‘certificates’ or ‘credits’ which allow organizations to emit a certain amount against that cap. The goal is to slowly reduce the cap every…”
“The one lesson is this: you have to consider ALL effects of economic intervention. The author claims that too many people intervene in the economy by only considering the effect on one group of people, not acknowledging that their change has also affected another group. The author is from the…”
“What can get mystifying about politics is that opposing politicians can have such different opinions about political issues. It seems like they can never agree about what to do about a given situation even though both sides are presented with the same facts. A large part of politics is about…”
“I bailed out on this book about a third of the way in because it doesn’t really have a point. The only point is that the author is pissed off and wants to rant about stuff. The author is kind of an Internet personality. He was an editor for Rolling Stone , he has a podcast and a Substack, and last…”
“John Maynard Keynes was a British economist. He had a lot of theories about economics, but it basically boils down to this – The government has to intervene in the economy . In a rescission, government has to increase spending to increase demand. During a boom, the government needs to reduce…”
“This is another book to which I gave every chance, but I eventually abandoned because it just never proved its point. The author is apparently quite famous in politically conservative circles. His prior book – Wealth and Poverty – was well-known, and I gather that he had something to do with…”
“Honestly, I didn’t totally get this book. The basic premise is that there are ‘narratives’ that drive economics. There are stories or explanations of things that we believe, and that cause economic things to happen. Some examples, from the book: Sellers can go into panic mode The Gold Standard is…”
“Vaclav Smil is a scientist and policy analyst. His specialty is looking at societal problems and figuring out how science and policy should intersect to make it better. He taught environmental science at the University of Manitoba. Bill Gates has said several times that Smil is one of his favorite…”
Improving the plight of the working poor can be a trickier problem than you think.
“Student loan debt exceeds credit card debt in USA : I think the student loan bubble is the next one to burst: Total student loan debt exceeds total credit card debt in this country, with $850 billion outstanding […] […] With tuition far outpacing inflation for the past 20 years, student borrowing…”
“I’m not an economist, but I’m fairly confident in a couple of economic principles. Inflation tells us that when there’s more money chasing the same amount of goods, prices will go up. Supply and demand tell us that when demand increases, prices will also go up. I read an article ( How the ‘creative…”
“ Vaguely interesting book about how people spend their money on ‘luxury’ items in order to publicly denote a certain level of social class. Lots of figures, graphs, etc. Not 100% of the point that it was trying to get at, honestly. ”
“ This video was shown at a Rotary lunch by the president of the local technical school. It lays out a solid (and entertaining) case that college isn’t for everyone, and you shouldn’t go ‘just to go.’ ”
“I have a theory: the U.S. economy requires a significant number of Americans to be stupid with money. If we ever all got our crap together and started managing our personal budgets responsibly, the economy might fall apart. Consider this article from Bloomberg this morning: Americans Can’t Help…”