“

For the cynicism and lack of moral courage that have been so evident in the campaign wouldn’t suddenly vanish once Mr. Romney entered the Oval Office. If he doesn’t dare disagree with economic nonsense now, why imagine that he would become willing to challenge that nonsense later? And bear in mind that if elected, he would be watched like a hawk for signs of apostasy by the very people he’s trying so desperately to appease right now.

The truth is that Mr. Romney is so deeply committed to insincerity that neither side can trust him to do what it considers to be the right thing.

”

From today’s Krugman piece on Romney, economics and dishonesty.

“In a world of High Frequency Trading and black box trading that does nothing but create a platform for “financial hackers” to turn the market into their own proprietary financial playground, we need to figure out a way to revert the Stock and Bond Markets, and the derivative instruments created from these equities, back to their original purpose, a place to raise capital for growing business.

The simplest way to change this is to place a very simple per share tax on every transaction. 10 cents a trade. Every share. Every option. Every Bond. Every currency transaction. Every trade.”

My Soapbox Advice to the OWS Movement and then some - Mark Cuban (via apoplecticskeptic)

(via apoplecticskeptic)

Nate Silver spreading the joy with some numbers: The numbers do not paint a pretty picture. According the model, a hurricane with windspeeds of about 100 miles per hour — making it a “weak” Category 2 storm — might cause on the order of $35 billion in damage if it were to pass directly over Manhattan. Such a storm would probably flood New York’s subway system as well as acres upon acres of prime real estate in neighborhoods like the East Village, the Financial District, Tribeca, Coney Island, Red Hook, DUMBO, as well as parts of Staten Island and most of the Rockaways. Read the rest of the article to learn how costly different strength hurricanes would be if they hit directly over NYC. Happy Friday!

Nate Silver spreading the joy with some numbers:

The numbers do not paint a pretty picture. According the model, a hurricane with windspeeds of about 100 miles per hour — making it a “weak” Category 2 storm — might cause on the order of $35 billion in damage if it were to pass directly over Manhattan. Such a storm would probably flood New York’s subway system as well as acres upon acres of prime real estate in neighborhoods like the East Village, the Financial District, Tribeca, Coney Island, Red Hook, DUMBO, as well as parts of Staten Island and most of the Rockaways.

Read the rest of the article to learn how costly different strength hurricanes would be if they hit directly over NYC.

Happy Friday!

NYT: Group of 8 Pledges to Aid Egypt and Tunisia »

Leaders of the Group of Eight wealthiest industrialized nations, seeking to ensure that pro-democracy movements in Egypt and Tunisia do not deteriorate into new opportunities for radical Islamists to strengthen their position, pledged on Friday to send about $20 billion in aid to the two countries to help anchor economic and political stability in the region over the next couple of years.

Parenthetical Statements to Ponder

ilyagerner:

In 2002, one had to earn $30 million to make it to the top twenty-five hedge fund incomes; in 2004; $100 million; in 2005, $130 million (when the twenty-fifth spot was occupied by William Browder, grandson of Earl Browder, onetime head of the Communist Party of the United States.) A year later, the average for the top twenty-five had nearly doubled to $240 million in 2007, it hit $360 million.

- Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics


And yet another reason why the Phish community is a lot smarter than most people think. From the New York Times:

…Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Company and an occasional commentator on CNBC, gave fans of the jam band Phish a thrill when he appeared on “The Kudlow Report” on Jan. 24 to discuss the effect that global inflation might have on the American economy.

Mr. Greenhaus has become a folk hero among fans of the band for slyly working in references to its music during his media appearances. And that one was a standout performance. 

In seven minutes, Mr. Greenhaus ticked off references to Phish songs like “Backwards Down the Number Line,” “Fast Enough for You” and “Free,” each fitting enough to the conversation to glide right over the head of Mr. Kudlow. For example, Mr. Greenhaus characterized inflation as “going backwards down the number line for the better part of two years now.”


Ezra Klein discusses Obamanomics:

What is the overarching policy they spent so much time getting right? What is Obamanomics?

When I asked participants and observers that question, they all started with the same premise: The administration didn’t have time for philosophy. It had to put out fires - and fast. But faced with the greatest economic crisis in generations, a crisis that spread across many sectors, their response, in retrospect, was remarkably consistent.

Isolate the eight key economic decisions of the Obama presidency: The intervention in the financial sector, the intervention in the auto sector, the intervention in the housing sector, the stimulus package, the health-care bill, financial regulation, and the tax deal. (The financial and auto interventions, it should be noted, were begun under George W. Bush but carried out and expanded under Obama.) In each case, the Obama administration sought to support or improve private markets. It refused to leave the market to sort itself out, as some on the right would have preferred, and resisted entreaties to take it over, as some on the left advocated.

Read the rest at The Washington Post.