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Brooks attacks the analogies and metaphors of the Obama administration, only to promptly slip into the metaphor abyss himself. It's an interesting example of the treacherous ground (metaphor alert!) characteristic of economic metaphors generally. Continue reading
Christmas is dead ahead. Time to clean the desk and go searching for the eggnog recipe. Damn. Under here somewhere. What do we say about the year rapidly receding behind us? Chastening. Sobering. Deflating. Deflationary. Yecch. Continue reading
Human behavior is larger than any equation, more elusive than any cliché or slogan. Models, like slogans, may be useful but they are easily abused as the means so easily become ends. Continue reading
By now seemingly everyone with access to a blog has contributed to the theory Joseph Stiglitz offers up in, of all places, the new Vanity Fair, about the causes not just of the Great Depression, but analogously, what he calls our own 'Long Slump.' Continue reading
Economists may be wrong as often as right, but at least they have some method and rigor. Cultural criticism and comparisons has no method, no restraints, beyond the subjective view of the observer. Continue reading
Reading Lauren Rivera's 'Ivies, Extracurricular and Exclusion: Elite Employers' Use of Educational Credentials' is a revelation -- and shocking. Continue reading
When the Cold War ended and Francis Fukuyama spun his globe, all he saw were liberal democracies. Monarchies were as anachronistic as swords. Communism was in ruins, and socialism had been absorbed into democratic welfare states. There were despots scattered... Continue reading
There remain the expectations that credit raters should be able to see the future by analyzing the present. Continue reading
What is Cooperman's beef? He feels insulted that the president has suggested that the wealthy are somehow 'bad,' and that they pay no taxes, which is an exaggeration, but hell, I lack the sensitivity of the rich. Continue reading
A deficit of leadership has become an all-purpose complaint in this troubled season of crisis and contention, similar in its haziness to recurrent demands for apologies. What does it mean? Continue reading
