London Banker: Because they now have the role of market maker of last resort, central banks should become much more active in ensuring that any asset permitted to be classed as capital by a bank can be liquidated on demand in a public market. If this is so, then they must needs take a view…
Read More again with the central bank thingBecause Chris Dillow has spam-bucketed me again, like quite a few TypePad sites periodically do, this comment will go here instead. Chris discusses a paper claiming that fiscal stimulus will not work because the central bank will put up interest rates and the exchange rate will rise, and quite sensibly points out that it doesn’t…
Read More don’t forget the powerFrom yesterday’s Obscurer, a story: A senior union source told The Observer that it was clear Alexander had jumped the gun as the Treasury attempted to show it was taking a hard line on the burgeoning pensions bill. “Danny Alexander has been reined in by the Cabinet Office,” said a union source. “What he did…
Read More There is no crisis, dammitThinking about my last post brought one of the ideas in this one to mind, especially given today’s front page. That is, was the miners’ strike a strategic bombing campaign? You what? But consider the strategy the NUM adopted. The basic idea was to concentrate on the supply of coal to the steel industry –…
Read More the 1980s considered as a battle in the air war over GermanyI’ve just been reading the Resolution Foundation Growth without Gain report like every other left-wing blogger. Here’s something interesting. About economics and the success or failure of New Labour’s administrative devolution. Don’t all rush at once. You read that right – between 2003 and 2008, disposable income in the UK fell on average by 1.1%…
Read More got DULL if you want itSo that Michael Lewis – you know, the one who writes articles about how stupid Icelanders were. Via The Oil and the Glory, here’s what he was saying in January, 2007, just as the last bulls in the US housing market’s dizziest bubbles finally cracked and the big plummet began. Here it is. But the…
Read More Don’t read Michael Lewis articles, do check if he’s still writingOwning the walls of a building separately may seem eccentric and ill-advised, but perhaps it will make a comeback in the light of stories like these? Deutsche Bank “Stuffed Mortgage Reviews In a Closet”. They’re also accused of being a slum-lord and a public menace. More slums, via Felix Salmon. And there’s a slightly unnerving…
Read More Economic factsDaniel Davies is notorious for making more than full use of a joke once he gets hold of it. I think this is the original source (perhaps even the Urquell) of his line that Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb must be furious at what Hollywood did to his book in development. Well, I watched…
Read More three lessons on risks: a movieTwo new posts on Stable & Principled: why George Osborne is a strange kind of Keynesian, and a surprisingly radical response to the crisis from the LSE. Prior reading: here.
Read More Admin: econopostsThis LA Times story about the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (so called because it’s still a dream – let’s get the last drop from that joke before it goes into service) and the role of outsourcing is fascinating. It is partly built on a paper by a senior Boeing engineer which makes among other things, this…
Read More 787: the plane Milton Friedman built, and about as well as you’d expect