Category Archives: Economics

College Football

In the opening week of NCAA football the Big 12 went undefeated. The Big Ten did not. The PAC-12 did not. The almighty SEC also did not.  The Big East went undefeated, though it would not have if TCU would be in their line up as the Horned Frogs were defeated by unranked Baylor from the Big 12.

If the Big 12 collapses it will not be for a lack of athletic competitiveness. Sure Colorado will probably be a ringer in the PAC-12 this year boosting the relative rankings of established teams in the conference, but it could be interesting seeing what happens when Nebraska hits perennial Big Ten favorites Michigan State, Ohio State, and Wisconsin.  Nebraska also lost its membership in the AAU which probably hits on the scholarly image of the Big Ten.

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A Big Day for America

Domestically for health care and internationally for Google’s action to change its position in the Chinese market.  Because Google is redirecting google.cn to their unfiltered Hong Kong site, I thinking it a bit early to be making the bold claim that Google has withdrawn from China completely.  Especially considering that Hong Kong is a part of the larger People’s Republic of China.  It will be interesting to see how both of the situations play out over the coming weeks and months, with health care passed and Google taking a serious step towards leaving the Chinese mainland.

The Hard Reform

glassIn a post last April put forward a case for considering more responsible ways of using information in markets. I would like now to address a problem that stems from Gramm-Leach-Bliley which may have played a larger role in the current market collapse than problems of information, the lack of necessary interdependence between different financial institutions that arose out of cross sector integration.

When Gramm-Leach-Bliley repealed the restrictions from Glass-Steagall which prevented several different types of financial institutions from merging, each class of which performed different market functions, it removed and important barrier which served to assist in preventing bad transactions and toxic securities.  That barrier was the need to do business with other institutions to accomplish certain kinds of transactions. The merging of differing types of financial players into single businesses allowed internal transactions to take place which created securities that would not have been created had these securities had to have been created through the cooperation of several different businesses.

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An Immodest Proposal

Having spent many a night thinking at the level of sheer stupidity and irresponsibility in actors creating, buying, and selling financial instruments a dramatic action must be undertaken to prevent the creation of the next collateralized debt obligation which will enrich a select few individuals before damning the population at large dependent on a stable economy for goods, services, and employment. The current economic crisis was not unavoidable, and could have been prevented if someone in a position to do something would have listened to the arguments against allowing the creation and trade in some of the horrible bastardized securities that imploded bringing down the rest of the financial markets, including the reduction of Iceland from a global financial powerhouse to competing with developing nations for relief from the International Monetary Fund.

It is my proposal that the SEC ought to create a division staffed by professional epistemologists to investigate novel and potentially bunk financial instruments, and that there should be a position held b a financial epistemologist that reports to the President and Congress on proposed changes to trading regulations. Our current economic crisis is rooted in poor treatment of information.
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