Tag

Exxon Valdez

Oil Company Chutzpah

Exxon Valdez South? “Chutzpah” – standard definition: killing your parents, then throwing yourself upon the mercy of the court because you’re an orphan. “Chutzpah” – oil company version: negligently spilling millions of barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, then raising prices at the pump because of the resulting shortage. Other random thoughts about...
Read More

Whose Laws? The Political (vs. Business) Case for Ending TBTF

The Too-Big-To-Fail Debate Advocates for cutting so-called “too big to fail” financial institutions down to (less threatening) size — I’m one of them — have rightly focused on the systemic risk such entities pose; the unfair, distorting effects on competition such a policy causes, due to the implicit federal guaranties backing TBTF companies (which drives...
Read More

Is Shiller Right About Trills, GDP?

The Search for New Currencies Although G.D.P. numbers still aren’t perfect ” they are subject to periodic revisions, for example ” the basic problem has been largely solved. –Robert Shiller, “A Way to Share in a Nation’s Growth“; The New York Times (12/26/2009) In a piece in today’s New York Times, Robert Shiller — that...
Read More

Archives