Category Archives: Economics

DO LARGE BANKS FINANCE BIG COMPANIES?

Posted on October 16, 2011 by Philip

DO LARGE BANKS FINANCE BIG COMPANIES? Another answer to Mary Jane’s question is that lending to large businesses is not a very important part of the business of the biggest banks. This blog post by John Kay (which appeared in … Continue reading →

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TRANSFERRING YOUR ACCOUNT FROM A LARGE BANK TO A SMALL BANK (COMMENT).

Posted on October 15, 2011 by Philip

TRANSFERRING YOUR ACCOUNT FROM A LARGE BANK TO A SMALL BANK (COMMENT). Mary Jane commented on my post asking whether the very biggest banks were a curse for the taxpayers of a country. She pointed out there is a new … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics | 3 Comments

CASH INCENTIVES FOR GRADES.

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Philip

CASH INCENTIVES FOR GRADES. Sam Dillon had an article in the New York Times (October 2) about the success of a national program which pays students and teachers for success on AP exams ($100 to a student with a passing … Continue reading →

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WAS THE RED SOX COLLAPSE A ONE IN 278 MILLION EVENT?

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Philip

WAS THE RED SOX COLLAPSE A ONE IN 278 MILLION EVENT? The 278 million figure is fun to think about, and the events were dramatic. One home run by potentially the last batter in one of the games was by … Continue reading →

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APOPHENIA—THE CARTOON.

Posted on October 8, 2011 by Philip

APOPHENIA—THE CARTOON. I posted here on September 25 about apophenia, and I have since been encountering discussions of the phenomenon although they don’t use the new word. Nate Silver even linked to this cartoon which dramatizes the phenomenon. The site … Continue reading →

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74.5.

Posted on October 7, 2011 by Philip

74.5. I posted here about a study by Credit Suisse that concluded that with the exception of Goldman Sachs, none of the biggest banks “would have consistently made returns much above the cost of their capital before the crisis had … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, History | 1 Comment

HACKSILVER.

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Philip

HACKSILVER. An actor at Dublinia, dressed as a Viking, introduced us to hacksilver, which is described in this wikipedia article. He was wearing a necklace and a bracelet made up, in this case, of fairly uniform beads of silver which … Continue reading →

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VIKINGS AND IRISHMEN LIVING TOGETHER.

Posted on October 1, 2011 by Philip

VIKINGS AND IRISHMEN LIVING TOGETHER. While we were in Dublin, we visited Dublinia, a museum devoted to Viking and medieval Dublin. Dublinia is located in a Viking-influenced area of Dublin, near the River Liffey. The museum had special meaning for … Continue reading →

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HOW CAN LOG ROLLING BE UNWOUND? (COMMENT).

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Philip

HOW CAN LOG ROLLING BE UNWOUND? (COMMENT). I posted several times about looking at the budget negotiations as a chicken game and Dick Weisfelder commented here about how the negotiations turned out. A 12 person super committee was appointed to … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Politics | 1 Comment

HOW MANY SAW THIS COULD HAPPEN AGAIN?

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Philip

HOW MANY SAW THIS COULD HAPPEN AGAIN? Three years ago I was posting, for example, here, that a lot of the factors that had led to the financial crisis had been out in the open and almost nobody had noticed. … Continue reading →

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