Archive for November 2008
Real income, poverty, and a tiered CPI
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: November 30, 2008
According to a recent book by Christian Broda and David E. Weinstein (Prices, Poverty, and Inequality: Why Americans are Better Off Than You Think) (ht Marginal Revolution) growth in income inequality was less pronounced in the US because of changes to the quality and cost of goods that “poor” people purchased. This indicates to me [...]
I’ve just discovered Debatepedia!
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: November 30, 2008
- In: Other
- Leave a Comment
In what could become an awesome resource for creating economics post, we have found Debatepedia. We discovered the site after we found it linking to a post we did on progressive taxes in support of the argument that “progressive taxes adjust for random factors in wealth“. The full progressive tax debate is here. It is [...]
Quote 12: Michael Lewis on incentives in Wall Street
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: November 29, 2008
- In: Quotes
- 2 Comments
Michael Lewis: He thought the cause of the financial crisis was “simple. Greed on both sides—greed of investors and the greed of the bankers.” I thought it was more complicated. Greed on Wall Street was a given—almost an obligation. The problem was the system of incentives that channeled the greed. Found in the December 2008 [...]
Dom post article: Time for a fiscal stimulus?
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: November 29, 2008
In today’s Dom Post column we discuss whether a fiscal stimulus is necessary at the moment – our conclusion is that it is not. Four criticisms I would have of my own logic are: There may be distributional reasons why you would want to change spending, An “improvement” in government spending would be beneficial, In [...]
The rebirth of “Keynes”: A good or a bad thing?
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: November 28, 2008
Over at Robert Reich’s blog, there is a discussion stating that now is the time for rising government spending in the US based on the “fact” that the government is the “spender of last resort” and that the economy has plenty of spare “capacity” (ht Mark Thoma at Economists View). We have discussed fiscal policy [...]
Aborting crime
Posted by: rauparaha on: November 28, 2008
- In: Politics
- 10 Comments
Garth George at The Herald reckons that the root cause of all abuse and domestic violence is abortion. His position seems largely religious in nature so I can’t argue the point on his grounds. However, I was surprised to see reasonable-sounding commentators at Kiwiblog unsure whether George might be correct. This topic isn’t a new [...]
Metering and the market for water
Posted by: goonix on: November 28, 2008
The DomPost contained an article on the potential for metering Wellington’s water supply. The question is asked: should Wellingtonians pay for their water? This issue is a hot topic, having been discussed at Kiwiblog, Infometrics and TVHE earlier this year. Historically, water has been provided for by the various Wellington councils out of rates. Water is [...]
Thoughts on the price of milk
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: November 28, 2008
This is from an email exchange between Agnitio and myself on why dairy prices rose, following his post on Fonterra’s auctions:
Why politics and savings don’t mix
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: November 27, 2008
Over at the Standard they discuss Bill English’s statement that we will become a “nation of savers”. Now their attack line is relatively weird, especially given that he is just saying that if we need a bigger deposit to buy a house we will have to save it – he doesn’t say we should take [...]
We’ve been tagged
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: November 27, 2008
- In: Other
- 6 Comments
So we’ve been tagged by MandM (explaination of it here). The rules are: Link to the person who tagged you Post the rules Share seven random or weird facts about yourself Tag 7 random people at the end of the post with their links Let each person know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment [...]
Nats to bail out big business?
Posted by: agnitio on: November 27, 2008
I was slightly concerned when I saw the headline on stuff this morning “Nats eye bailout of big business” If the government is saying ex ante that they will bail out big businesses I would be concerned as this has the potential to cause a moral hazard problem. This is where firms know they will [...]
Picks for the December RBNZ meeting
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: November 27, 2008
I’m going with a 75 basis point cut on December 4. Now no-one might agree with this, iPredicit certainly doesn’t (putting the probability at 3% when I looked), but there are reasons: Update: I brought some 75 shares in iPredict after posting this post – because agnitio told me to. Petrol price collapse (which might [...]
Promoting consumer debt in the US: Should we?
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: November 27, 2008
I have to admit that I am confused. The US wants to pump a bunch of money into the economy in order to get consumers borrowing again – why? I thought that one of the primary issues was that the US consumer has borrowed too much in the past, supposedly to make up for a [...]
Fonterra auction to blame for low dairy prices??
Posted by: agnitio on: November 26, 2008
Apparently the Aussies are blaming Fonterra’s Global Dairytrade online auction platform for lowering the price of milk. Interesting. If the auction is simply reflecting the true value of milk then the I feel no sympathy. This quote from the manager of the auction system sums up it’s purpose Fonterra’s global trade managing director Kelvin Wickham [...]
PPPs? Yes, please…..maybe
Posted by: agnitio on: November 26, 2008
The Standard don’t see the point in them and Fletcher Building would rather have a standard construction contract that doesn’t transfer risk to them and doesn’t require them to incur costs setting the arrangement up. I’m FAR from an expert on the issue of PPPs, and there may be some valid concerns using them for [...]
Matt Nolan
rauparaha
agnitio
dant03
stevedoogue
Robbie Allan
goonix
metrosideros
cpworthington
Recent Comments