Ethersnap
Interests:
Current events, yoga, economics, food, travel, and all things cute.
Interests:
Current events, yoga, economics, food, travel, and all things cute.
Even if they didn’t agree with Obama on everything in 2008, many in the financial industry looked at him then and saw a reflection of their imagined best selves: brainy, self-made, above the mewlings and histrionics of partisan politics. He seemed like the kind of Democrat even white-shoe Republican bankers and libertarian hedge-funders could get behind, and many of them did.
(via Matt Abramcyk and Nadine Ferber’s Party Primer - Interactive Feature - T Magazine)
THE DRINKS
‘‘I’m a wine gal,’’ says Ferber, who always has a bottle of Sancerre handy (her current favorite: Michel Brock). Abramcyk recommends Campari sunrises made with soda and a splash of orange juice, and garnished with a blood orange slice. ‘‘You can drink it in the morning — all day long,’’ he says, ‘‘though I’m sure at some point you’d fall asleep.’’
People get very angry before they change their mind,” he said. “Economics is counterintuitive. It just is.” I told him that surely is true, but his ideas are counterintuitive even to people well versed in economics.
Romney’s Former Bain Partner Makes a Case for Inequality - NYTimes.com
This is so gauche and horrifying.
Conard, as if you took so many risks in your life. HBS, then Bain, then Wasserstein Perella and Bain Cap. That is soooo risky for your financial prospects, right?! Who can say with a straight face that turning down law school to go to HBS is a true risk?
Competition has trumped value-creation. In this and other ways, the competitive arena undermines innovation.
Earth to Ben Bernanke: Chairman Bernanke Should Listen to Professor Bernanke - NYTimes.com
The Fed under Bernanke is by no means the worst sinner in this failure of intellect and will, and you can argue that Ben Bernanke has done a better job than anyone else who might have held his position. Yet the fact is, he has not done remotely enough. The Fed, under its eminent chairman, was supposed to be an important part of the solution to mass unemployment. That isn’t happening.
First (?) Annual Princeton Economics Department Cage Match: Krugman vs. Bernanke!
Some experts say these new findings raise questions about the effectiveness of efforts to combat the obesity epidemic simply by improving access to healthy foods. Despite campaigns to get Americans to exercise more and eat healthier foods, obesity rates have not budged over the past decade, according to recently released federal data.
Studies Question the Pairing of Food Deserts and Obesity - NYTimes.com
In a way, the United States is becoming like Old Europe, which is very strange in historical perspective,” Mr. Piketty said. “The United States used to be very egalitarian, not just in spirit but in actuality. Inequality of wealth and income used to be much larger in France. And very high taxes on the very rich — that was invented in the United States,” he said.
For Economists Saez and Piketty, the Buffett Rule Is Just a Start - NYTimes.com
We read some of Piketty and Saez’s work the other week in POL 352!
The conceit that poverty is a problem suffered by other — often less deserving — people was an essential part of suburban self-identity that was reflected in its politics. Better-heeled suburban schools, sports teams and private recreation contributed to an ethos that emphasized family residential security, individual meritocracy and private life. Its inhabitants conveniently forgot that their cherished neighborhoods were in fact dependent on the programs of the New Deal state, not to mention the federal residential security maps that privileged white Americans.
When the history books are written about Goldman Sachs, they may reflect that the current chief executive officer, Lloyd C. Blankfein, and the president, Gary D. Cohn, lost hold of the firm’s culture on their watch. I truly believe that this decline in the firm’s moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival.
