I’m just back from a stroll over to the HarperCollins building, where I handed over almost 400 pages of marked-up Myth of the Rational Market manuscript (we’ve reached the stage in the process where I’m no longer allowed to alter anything electronically). This is all happening about four years after it was originally supposed to, but the …

All day long the top story on Time.com has been this one about a spike in shark attacks in Australia. It starts:

Swimmers at Australian beaches are usually reassured by statistics that indicate they are more likely to be struck by lightning than chomped by a shark. But after three non-fatal shark attacks in the country in less than 48

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I’m off today frantically trying to meet a book-related deadline. But I could not let the glorious news that Rickey Henderson made it into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot go uncommemorated. I used to carry the man’s baseball card in my wallet when I was in high school. As a sort of good luck talisman, I guess. Or maybe to make me …

Here’s a link to a story I wrote about how our puny human brains aren’t particularly up to the task of comprehending big numbers—e.g., $700 billion bailout, $1.2 trillion deficit—and what we can do about it. The piece is designed to be accessible to a broad audience, so I stuck with back-of-the-envelope math that you don’t have to …

Mortgage servicers (who in many cases are also the original lenders) have long been saying they can’t simply cut interest rates or reduce principal balances on loans to help people avoid foreclosure, because they’ll get sued by investors in mortgage-related securities. I find it interesting that this argument has been largely absent from …

I’m usually reticent to publicize my television appearances, but since it was actually pretty entertaining (to participate in, at least) and I doubt many of you will just happen to be watching CSPAN2 tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern, here goes: Close up at the Newseum, with host Frank Bond, Michelle Singletary of the Washington Post, me, and …

The Bureau of Labor Statistics issued its monthly Employment Situation report this morning, and you’ve surely already seen the headlines about 524,000 in job losses and a 7.2% employment rate. But I thought it would be helpful to go through the basics, as in times like these lots of people who normally ignore the employment report are …

A reader has asked me to link to this article about what price-rent ratios are telling us about the state of the housing market. Price-rent ratio is basically the price of a house divided by the cost of renting an apartment—a measure of whether houses are more expensive than they should be. Here’s a taste:

At first pass, the data

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