Via the beady-eyed Browser, a fascinating piece over at Marginal Revolution about the way small errors in calculating debt risks can have cascading systemic bad consequences down the road: Suppose that we misspecified the underlying probability of mortgage default and we later discover the true probability is not .05 but .06. […]
At what point does ‘anecdotal’ evidence of the results of any given policy start to look like reality? He had made the point that if he was some £800 per month worse off because of Labour’s 50% tax band, he would have to cut some current personal ‘discretionary’ expenditure to […]
You know you’re getting old when your friends’ children suddenly pop up doing good stuff. On their own. Take Louisa Allen, debuting on iTunes with her song Sorry. Buy the album. What a sponge! And Kate Maltby, over at Yale as a wannabe conservative feminist cultural critic, off to a flying […]
What does the new UK government plan to do eg with our old enemy the Working Time Directive? According to the BBC: As part of the EU truce, the Conservatives will drop their plan to seek an opt-out from some social legislation, especially the working time directive, but will seek […]
Read this lucid big picture piece by Robert Samuelson about the global economy: Despite some disagreements, economic scholars subscribe to a broad consensus about what went wrong in the 1930s. Government central banks, like the Fed, were too passive. They didn’t halt bank panics. Intervention at decisive moments (perhaps the […]
I signed up for Twitter a few minutes ago wondering if I would get any followers. 55 have signed up already. Blimey. This thing is FAST. How do you stop it taking over your life? Or maybe it just does? Next stop. To work out how to get my blog […]
I have mentioned before the energetic and profound e-mailed writings of John Mauldin. Look at this from a piece he recently ran by Michael E Lewitt – a wonderful definition of capital and by implication capitalism: Capital is not a thing or a category; capital is a living, breathing phenomenon. Capital […]
The latest BBRU is hosted by Matt Wardman – with added Election Geekery.
Here is the UK election exit poll as published at 2200 last night: 10.00pm: Here is the exit poll: Conservatives: 307 seats Labour: 255 Lib Dems: 59 BBC and chattering class consternation! This can’t be right. The Lib Dems have … bombed?!? The final result (almost): Party Predicted seats Seats […]
Off I go to vote, en route to the LBC election special starting at midnight tonight. A senior (very senior) civil servant and his wife told me the other day that they had been firm New Labour Blairite people – liking the idea of smart, inclusive but tough approaches to domestic […]
