Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, continues to urge that public officials come to grips with the frequency of extreme weather … A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo said he believed New York was the first state to caution investors about climate change. The caution, which cites Hurricane Sandy and Tropical Storms Irene and Lee, is included alongside warnings about other risks like potential cuts in federal spendi...Read More
Russell Lynch: Central banks are now too powerful to have free rein … Who guards the guards? It's a question worth asking as the Bank of England takes on a vast new remit to oversee the financial system alongside its existing rate-setting powers next week. It was a question also bothering many of the "rock stars" of economics on parade at the London School of Economics this wee...Read More
'Robo-reporter' computer program raises questions about future of journalists … Reporters may not look like this in the future, but one media outlet employs a robo-reporter — a program that compiles data into a pre-determined structure, then formats the information for publication. Journalist Ken Schwencke has occasionally awakened in the morning to find his byline atop a news...Read More
Instead Of Doing His Job, Jeroen Dijsselbloem Has Given Us A Glimpse Of The Euro 'End Game' … If you've been following the Cyprus bailout story at all, you're probably familiar by now with Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch Finance Minister who became President of the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers in January. As President of the Eurogroup, Dijsselbloem has one extremel...Read More
In a previous post, I explained that banks are inherently fragile. One way to make them more robust is to increase equity capital requirements … A genuinely radical approach would be to kill banking as we know it. Rip all banks, large or small, in two – separate deposit-taking from credit-creation. Back the deposits one-for-one with reserves at the central bank. Then fund loans not wit...Read More
The federal government's collection of unused and vacant properties is killing taxpayers. Watchdog groups say maintenance and bureaucratic red tape related to the U.S. government's 55,000-to-77,000 vacant properties has cost taxpayers up to $8 billion so far. An example: The government just sold off one of its buildings this month, for $19.5 million, Breitbart reports. But it took 10 years...Read More
Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, continues to urge that public officials come to grips with the frequency of extreme weather … A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo said he believed New York was the first state to caution investors about climate change. The caution, which cites Hurricane Sandy and Tropical Storms Irene and Lee, is included alongside warnings about other risks like potential cuts in federal spendi...Read More
Russell Lynch: Central banks are now too powerful to have free rein … Who guards the guards? It's a question worth asking as the Bank of England takes on a vast new remit to oversee the financial system alongside its existing rate-setting powers next week. It was a question also bothering many of the "rock stars" of economics on parade at the London School of Economics this wee...Read More
'Robo-reporter' computer program raises questions about future of journalists … Reporters may not look like this in the future, but one media outlet employs a robo-reporter — a program that compiles data into a pre-determined structure, then formats the information for publication. Journalist Ken Schwencke has occasionally awakened in the morning to find his byline atop a news...Read More
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Energy, Security, and Climate … CFR experts examine the science and foreign policy surrounding climate change, energy, and nuclear security. Bad News for Pessimists Everywhere: Malthus Was Wrong … There is a tempting intuition to the idea that the real prices of non-renewable goods like coal, iron ore, or oil should rise, more or less, forever. It's an easy argument to make, and it...Read More
The Housing Bubble Is Back … Cullen Roche is worried that the trajectory of housing prices might deviate from what practical assumptions would predict " Real estate returns are not rocket science. Because they're such a huge portion of the consumer balance sheet they tend to be tied very closely to wage growth. Wage growth, by definition, is very closely tied to the rate of inflatio...Read More
The Rise of Robots – and Decline of Jobs – Is Here … Last night, 60 Minutes aired an interesting report on the rise of robots in the workforce – a subject we've covered extensively. What they concluded was the robots we're seeing aren't necessarily the R2-D2's and Short Circuits of science fiction – the ones that become so self-aware that they challeng...Read More
Nine Facts about Top Journals in Economics … How has publishing in top economics journals changed since 1970? Using a data set that combines information on all articles published in the top-5 journals from 1970 to 2012 with their Google Scholar citations, we identify nine key trends. First, annual submissions to the top-5 journals nearly doubled from 1990 to 2012. Second, the total number of...Read More
Energy, Security, and Climate … CFR experts examine the science and foreign policy surrounding climate change, energy, and nuclear security. Bad News for Pessimists Everywhere: Malthus Was Wrong … There is a tempting intuition to the idea that the real prices of non-renewable goods like coal, iron ore, or oil should rise, more or less, forever. It's an easy argument to make, and it...Read More
The Housing Bubble Is Back … Cullen Roche is worried that the trajectory of housing prices might deviate from what practical assumptions would predict " Real estate returns are not rocket science. Because they're such a huge portion of the consumer balance sheet they tend to be tied very closely to wage growth. Wage growth, by definition, is very closely tied to the rate of inflatio...Read More
The Rise of Robots – and Decline of Jobs – Is Here … Last night, 60 Minutes aired an interesting report on the rise of robots in the workforce – a subject we've covered extensively. What they concluded was the robots we're seeing aren't necessarily the R2-D2's and Short Circuits of science fiction – the ones that become so self-aware that they challeng...Read More
Nine Facts about Top Journals in Economics … How has publishing in top economics journals changed since 1970? Using a data set that combines information on all articles published in the top-5 journals from 1970 to 2012 with their Google Scholar citations, we identify nine key trends. First, annual submissions to the top-5 journals nearly doubled from 1990 to 2012. Second, the total number of...Read More
BRICS Nations Plan New Bank to Bypass World Bank, IMF … The biggest emerging markets are uniting to tackle under-development and currency volatility with plans to set up institutions that encroach on the roles of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The leaders of the so-called BRICS nations − Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa − are set to approve the estab...Read More