Personal Finance And Investing

25 February 2010

Long Term Joblessness

Unemployment is a frightening prospect to all of us. Even worse than losing your job is not being able to find a new one.

While many of us worry about short-term unemployment, long-term unemployment is a specter that haunts societies and individuals alike. Should you be thinking more about the implications of long-term joblessness?

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6 December 2009

Gifts for Investment Nerds

As the holiday season approaches, we take a quick sojourn through some gift ideas for those particularly hard-to-shop-for investment dorks in our lives.

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16 November 2009

Why a Clawback Might Be In Order

While a clawback may seem unwieldy, it may be time to reduce moral hazard by taking a way some elements of the financial industries “free ride.”

It may be unappealing to try to mete out financial justice, but it is even more unappealing to continue with the status quo. Is a clawback the right tool to give some negative feedback to the banking industry about their outcomes?

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13 September 2009

A Modest Health Care Proposal

What is the solution to the Health Care issue in this country? It certainly isn’t ignoring it and hoping it goes away.

There are plenty of things wrong with health care that need addressing, however the debate has gone very far away from the issues. It is wrong-headed and counterproductive to try to derail the debate, so lets look at some less discussed options.

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6 September 2009

Is America Still the Land of Opportunity?

Many pundits are advocating a flight from the Dollar. The US is apparently in the midst of a spiral that cannot be averted. Should you be moving your money offshore?

While there are many risk factors to investing in the US right now, there are many risk factors in investing in other countries as well. The picture may not be as clear as some would suggest.

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19 July 2009

Why Everyone’s Wrong About Fixing Health Care

The healthcare debate has gone into the weeds and sanity doesn’t seem to be anywhere in sight. As usual, pontificating and diversion are the order of the day, with rational discourse long ago left behind.

When a system is as broken as the American healthcare system, it can’t be easy to fix and more government isn’t always the answer. At the same time, continuing with the status quo is a recipe for disaster. Where is the middle ground?

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28 June 2009

Can We All Just Agree That Price Controls Do Not Work?

As a preamble to some other discussions, we try to get out of the way any dissenting opinions on the subject of price controls.

Price controls appeal to the anecdotal side of us, there is really very little evidence to support the idea that they do anything other than the exact opposite of their intent.

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21 June 2009

The Problem with Uncertainty

Many revisionists are now taking aim at government reaction during the 2008 economic crisis. Moreover they are indicting the stimulus and the thinking that powers it.

The question however should not be whether the government has done too much or too little, but when it will stop doing things. While the government can act as a stabilizing force more typically it brings uncertainty.

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14 June 2009

Is the Mortgage Crisis Over?

Many people’s lives have already been dramatically affected by the mortgage crisis. Much of our chances of economic recovery rest on if and when the mortgage crisis will end.

Unfortunately many people may be defining this crisis too narrowly. To figure out if the mortgage crisis is over, we first have to define what mortgage crisis we’re talking about.

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29 May 2009

Debt and Moral Hazard

While we struggle to try to return to “business as usual” in America, we gloss over how things have fundamentally changed.

The current economic situation represents not necessarily a fundamental shift, but the eventual realization of moral hazard. We’ve rewarded the wrong kind of behavior for too long and lost sight of sound decisions making.

Is it too late to return to sound practices?

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