Marketplace of Ideas

Marketplace of Ideas

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Senator John McCain on how to win the war in Afghanistan…‘Don’t nationalize; partnerize’…As regulators start ‘stress tests’ on banks, the question of what constitutes a bank’s capital and how to measure it is coming to the fore...There are ‘13 rare, overlapping 'tipping points,' unpredictable macroeconomic events that lurk in our peripheral vision as economic time bombs with ‘massive consequences’'…What would $787 billion buy?

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Missing from this stimulus bill legislation is ‘anything more than token support for the long-proven source of most new jobs and new growth in America: entrepreneurs’…‘Congress should hold Bernanke’s feet to the fire on two very basic questions’…American Express is offering a $300 incentive to cancel accounts…The United Kingdom has been perhaps the hardest hit in the global downturn…‘The green lobby—or at least an important part of it—appears to have had an epiphany’ and come out in support of nuclear power…

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

‘Today’s crisis creates an opportunity to build a freer and more open world economy’…A best-selling book blames regulation rather than deregulation for the financial crisis…The Euro’s moment of truth has finally arrived...Scientists do not know where half of the carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels disappears to and hope a new satellite will show them...New technologies are being developed to search the Web’s hidden content…

Monday, February 23, 2009

‘The debate over executive compensation misses the point. We need laws changed so that shareholders can better exercise their ownership rights, and elect new board members that will compensate executives fairly according to the specific challenges a company faces’…President Obama’s claim that a transformed energy economy would be an ‘engine of economic growth’ to rival the computer is too good to be true…The market is shorting the new ‘stimulus’…The National School Lunch Program has turned out to be a poor investment and should be redesigned…‘The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan predicted this week that the United States would likely need to stay heavily committed in Afghanistan for the next three to five years. While a sizable minority of Americans would prefer a timetable for withdrawal sooner than that, the data suggest many would support a decision to stay longer’…

Friday, February 20, 2009

The Producer Price Index says that service sector deflation is almost here...‘Fears that a contagious currency sell-off could rip through faltering Eastern European economies prompted Brussels to tell finance ministers and central bankers from the region yesterday to end loose talk that could inflame a crisis of confidence in its prospects’...The Swiss bank UBS has agreed to divulge the names of Americans suspected of using offshore accounts at the bank to evade taxes…‘A battery of recent studies shows that employees who sue over discrimination lose at a higher rate in federal court than other types of plaintiffs’...A Gallup poll shows the nation’s religiosity varies greatly by region…

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Britain could be stripped of its AAA credit rating as a result of the U.K. government’s latest bank bailout. ‘A downgrade would be calamitous … the country’s interest bill would soar, putting further strain on the economy’... The group most culpable for the economic downturn is boards of directors. A two-step program for improved governance ..John Steele Gordon gives a short history of the national debt and finds the trend in deficits worrisome…New York plans to spend $45 million to retrain laid-off Wall Streeters…Space is insurance’s new frontier...

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Did a critical mass of inexperienced, over confident Harvard MBAs Kill Wall Street? Many U.S. economists have been looking for lessons from Japan’s banking disaster in the 1990s, but they should be looking ahead to what might occur if Japan’s recession should become a depression. Edward L. Glaeser writes that building more skyscrapers—especially in California—will save the planet. Russia signs a $25 billion energy deal with China, securing oil supplies in return for loans. Starbucks launches an instant coffee brand.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Where do price/earnings ratios stand today compared to several months ago? Surprising many, the market’s p/e ratio has risen. In 2008’s fourth quarter, consumer spending on food fell 3.7 percent from the third quarter, the steepest decline in the 62 years the government has compiled the figure. The stimulus bill will undo some of the 1996 reform of welfare. Microsoft is planning to open its own retail stores to rival those of Apple.The London Stock Exchange confirmed Xavier Rolet, most recently of Lehman Brothers, as its chief executive.

Friday, February 13, 2009

The English Premier League, perhaps the world’s top soccer league, may soon institute ‘a quota for a minimum number of “homegrown” players’…The new wind turbines and solar energy facilities operating in Germany ‘haven’t prohibited the emission of even a single gram of CO2’…The New York Times reports that ‘the goals lawmakers set for the ethanol industry are in serious jeopardy’…Economist Roger Congleton examines ‘the political economy of the financial crisis and bailout of 2008’…Treasury chief Tim Geithner has been unable to reassure financial markets…

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron says that ‘doing nothing is always an option, and in my view it would be better than the stimulus’…Manhattan Institute scholar Steve Malanga notes that ‘the housing market often trails in an economic recovery’…Will the Obama administration abandon U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system in Eastern Europe? Intel, the computer giant, ‘has announced plans to build new plants worth $7 billion’…Asia ‘is now facing a more extreme downturn than that in 1997-1998’…