In a front page story on Sunday, the New York Times suggests that commodity investor Anthony Ward may be trying to corner the cocoa market. Ward–known as Choc Finger–reportedly purchased 241,000 tons of cocoa, about 7% of the world’s annual crop. The price tag? A cool $1 billion. The NYT suggests that Ward is doing [...]
Archive for July, 2010
The Cocoa Corner: Is Choc Finger Down $150 Million?
Posted in Finance, tagged Cocoa, Finance on July 25, 2010 | 1 Comment »
What’s the Best Voting System?
Posted in Politics, tagged Voting on July 23, 2010 | 6 Comments »
Last February I highlighted a New Yorker piece about instant runoff voting (IRV) in awarding the Oscar for Best Picture. (Kudos to author Hendrik Hertzberg for correctly predicting the winner: The Hurt Locker.) As I said at the time, I think elections to public office would benefit from IRV as well: Why? Because it eliminates [...]
A New Low in Home Construction
Posted in Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged Housing on July 21, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Yesterday’s housing data were suitably glum, with single-family starts and permits both down (0.7% and 3.4%, respectively). And what about my favorite metric, the number of houses under construction? It fell a hefty 5.3%. Which puts the number of single-family homes under construction at its lowest level in decades: After the expiration of the new home [...]
Merle Hazard Goes to the Parthenon
Posted in Finance, Macroeconomics, tagged Deflation, Greece, Humor, Inflation on July 20, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
… in Tennessee, that is. But he’s singing about Greek debt: Given all the recent discussion about inflation and deflation, let me also recommend Merle’s earlier hit, which includes my favorite lyric: “… will we be Zimbabwe or will we be Japan?” (So far, I think Japan is much more likely.)
What To Do With Fannie and Freddie?
Posted in Finance, Regulation, tagged Fannie Mae, Finance, Freddie Mac, GSE, Housing on July 19, 2010 | 5 Comments »
The Economist asked several experts to recommend options for resolving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two failed mortgage giants. In addition to comments, the magazine’s web site allows users to recommend responses they like. It’s hardly scientific, but since the rankings (as of 9:15pm eastern time) work to my favor, let me rank them [...]
Testimony on the 2001 and 2003 Tax Cuts
Posted in Budget, tagged Budget, Taxes on July 16, 2010 | 1 Comment »
As you may have heard, the tax cuts that were originally enacted back in 2001 and 2003 are scheduled to expire at the end of the year. In the good old pre-crisis days, many members of the budget community (myself included) used to say things like “maybe the looming expiration of the tax cuts will finally provide [...]
The End of Cap and Trade?
Posted in Energy, Environment, Microeconomics, Regulation, tagged Climate Change, Energy, Environment on July 12, 2010 | 2 Comments »
No, not for carbon. For sulfur dioxide. As noted by Mark Peters at the Wall Street Journal: The original U.S. cap-and-trade market, which succeeded in slashing the power-plant emissions that cause acid rain, is in disarray following the issuance of new federal pollution rules. The collapse in the pioneering market where power producers trade permits [...]
The Hot Tentacle
Posted in Behavioral Economics, Finance, Nature, tagged Humor, Nature, Octopus on July 11, 2010 | 3 Comments »
The World Cup started with vuvuzelas and ended with Paul the octopus. The world’s most famous cephalopod grabbed headlines by correctly predicting the winners of eight straight World Cup matches, including today’s victory by Spain over the Netherlands. I’ve enjoyed Paul’s exploits, but his success got me wondering: just how many animals are out there [...]
How to Defeat the Lionfish? Use Your Knife and Fork
Posted in Life, Microeconomics, Nature, tagged Nature, Property, Tragedy of the Commons on July 8, 2010 | 1 Comment »
As regular readers know, I am intrigued by animals in weird places (voles in the Rose Garden, grey whales in the Mediterranean) and quirky discussions of property rights (guacamole, overhead bins, snow shoveling, office lunches). So imagine my delight when I opened the Food section of the Washington Post to discover an issue that brings [...]
Why Taxes Are Going Up
Posted in Budget, tagged Budget, CBO, Taxes on July 7, 2010 | 3 Comments »
It’s hard to imagine that spending restraint alone can solve America’s long-run fiscal woes. Facing an aging population and rising health care costs, the federal government will continue to expand even if policymakers take serious steps to trim spending. That’s why policy wonks are working so hard to evaluate ways to raise more revenue. Cutting [...]
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