The new issue of Jack Ciesielski’s Analyst’s Accounting Observer has a list of “20 Questions to Ask on Conference Calls.” He means quarterly earnings conference calls, and the questions are all related to the current financial and economic turmoil. You’ll have to pay Jack some big bucks if you want to know all 20, but the first two …
A Dane watches the presidential debate
A Danish friend who watched the debate from Copenhagen sent me this e-mail last night. He was a little groggy–it was 5 a.m. his time–but I figured it was worth sharing:
[A]mericans don’t understand that you’re a part of a global economy and society. The whole world is struggling with financial problems mainly because of the
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Unpacking Casey Mulligan’s argument about strong fundamentals
University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan had a provocative piece on the New York Times op-ed page last Friday arguing that, financial crisis or no, the economy would be okay. The reason he’s so sure? The strong performance of a measure he calls marginal product of capital:
Since World War II, the marginal product of capital, after
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Fair pay comes up in last night’s debate
With the economy bottoming out, it’s a given that working women are going to get slammed extra hard, what with our piddling 77 cents earned to every dollar for a man. But it seemed to me that equal pay had taken a back seat in this increasingly feisty presidential campaign. So when Barack Obama mentioned Lilly Ledbetter last night, I hooted.
New column: The fundamentally strong economy
My column in the new TIME that goes on sale Friday (it’s got Lincoln, FDR, Obama and McCain on the cover) is already up online. It begins:
John McCain’s claim that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong,” uttered just before the financial crisis turned dire, may go down as one of the great blunders of presidential-campaign history.
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McCain and Obama talk about the economy again
First of all, this was so much better than the other two McBama debates. I only watched about five minutes of the second one (I did watch all of the first, to my regret), but I can still say with confidence: This was the best. The format totally rocked. Bob Schieffer totally rocked. It was AN ACTUAL DEBATE. U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
I’ll …
Not a panic, a sigh of resignation
I wasn’t really paying attention, and I definitely wasn’t watching CNBC, but it appears the stock market had a pretty bad day–the Dow down 7.8%, the S&P 9%. As always, I think the main lesson here is that these are volatile times, and in volatile times you’ll get days like this.
But a pretty convincing narrative thread for the day’s …
Self-congratulation in our time, hedge fund edition
Look, I’m not saying I’m Nouriel Roubini or anything. I don’t host a lot of fashion shows or dance parties at my apartment. And I didn’t predict the current financial crisis.
But as a congenital optimist who began to be filled with foreboding early in 2007, I did write a lot of stuff that does not look overly stupid at the moment. And …
The job market blows. Consider this: priesthood
Seriously.
I spent a lot of time around priests and nuns growing up, mainly because my dad once wore the collar. He joined the priesthood at a time when it was considered a good career choice (not to mention, of course, a calling). His was an evangelical order, so it must have seemed exotic to a Philly boy: see the world! Save the …
How the heck are we supposed to afford college?
Our babysitter’s a high school senior. She’s considering some really nice colleges, none of them in state. Which got me thinking about college tuition, which granted is down the road a ways for my two little ones, but is looming nonetheless. Which got me thinking about our college savings plan, an elaborately devised program that …
Dick Kovacevich was furious. John Mack didn’t say much
This morning the Times and the Journal each have a great tick-tock of what happened on Monday afternoon when Hank Paulson called a meeting with the CEOs of nine of the nation’s biggest banks and said they were about to be recapitalized. Both accounts are riveting, and I’ve pasted some snippets below—though there does seem to be a …
Ari Fleischer has some strange ideas about income taxes
I just heard Ari Fleischer say this on the Daily Show:
You can’t have a country that’s strong when you have 45% of the population not paying any income tax.
Does this man know anything about the history of the income tax? No, obviously not. So let me share a fun fact from the Treasury Department. In the early years of the federal income …