A young company seizes its chance in the craze for Indian movies and music
GE chief executive Jeff Immelt isn’t a big fan of the $500,000 pay cap for executives at financial institutions that get additional government help, which the Obama Administration announced yesterday, but he still thinks Barack Obama rocks. “It’s in the best interest of the citizens of the country for Jamie Dimon to run JP Morgan,” [...]
Did you know that Time.com also offers podcasts? Yes, it’s true. This isn’t your grandmother’s Time magazine! Each week, Katherine Lanpher interviews the likes of me and Justin and contributing editor John Curran about what’s going on in the economy. You can listen to the most recent installment by clicking here and scrolling down to [...]
From a Congressional Budget Office estimate released today on the impact of some amendment or other to the Senate stimulus bill: The macroeconomic impacts of any economic stimulus program are very uncertain. Economic theories differ in their predictions about the effectiveness of stimulus. Furthermore, large fiscal stimulus is rarely attempted, so it is difficult to [...]
Back in 2006, Matt Miller wrote a column for Fortune that seemed very clever to me at the time and now is looking downright prescient. The gist of it: Here’s my outlandish theory: that economic resentment at the bottom of the top 1 percent of America’s income distribution is the new wild card in public [...]
Friend of the Curious Capitalist Mark Zandi is the subject today of both a Washington Post article and a lengthy post on the WSJ’s Real Time Economics blog. The gist of both is that he has become the country’s Chief Stimulus Economist. From the Post: The 49-year-old economist is a Democratic dream, a former adviser [...]
I’m back from Switzerland and I’m coughing and have a fever. Isn’t air travel great? Anyway, I wrote this list of Nine Things I Learned at Davos at a friend’s apartment in Zurich Sunday night and at the Zurich Airport Monday morning. It would have been 10 things but I ran out of time. At [...]
Cheap mortgages are back. Rather, the idea of the government standing behind cheap mortgages in order to get people to buy houses and prop up home prices is back. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell starting trumpeting the notion in full force today. The argument: that a 4% fixed-rate loan for “any credit-worthy borrower”—whether homebuyer or [...]
A couple weeks back, Justin liked Jack Guttentag’s explanation of why banks receiving TARP money shouldn’t be made to immediately lend it out. This morning I am equally impressed with Bert Ely’s opinion piece in the WSJ about why pressuring banks to lend could backfire. Among the points that bear repeating: Lost in too many [...]
