If you’ve got a free hour, here’s video of HBS’s Michael Porter, McKinsey’s Byron Auguste, and me talking about competitiveness. Hosted by Matt McDonald of Hamilton Place Strategies. It would be fair to say that Michael, Byron, and I agree a great deal.
Archive for February, 2011
Developing the Competitiveness Agenda, the Video
Posted in Economy on February 27, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Developing the Competitiveness Agenda
Posted in Economy, Uncategorized, tagged Economy on February 24, 2011 | 1 Comment »
On Friday I will be speaking at an event sponsored by Hamilton Place Strategies. It came together on short notice, so let me give it a plug: Developing the Competitiveness Agenda This week’s first meeting of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness kicked off a national debate on the economic policies encouraging greater job creation and [...]
Why are WTI and Brent Oil Prices Out of Whack?
Posted in Energy, tagged Oil on February 21, 2011 | 5 Comments »
As regular readers may recall, I am intrigued when prices deviate from normal relationships (see, e.g., previous posts on oil vs. natural gas prices and the pricing of Citigroup securities). Over the past couple of months, a new anomaly has emerged: crude oil quoted at Brent has become much more expensive than WTI, the usual [...]
How is Housing Affecting Inflation? An Update
Posted in Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged Economy, Housing, Inflation, Macroeconomics on February 20, 2011 | 3 Comments »
A few months ago, I argued that housing was messing up inflation measures, in particular the core CPI. With last week’s release of fresh CPI data, I decided to check in to see if that’s still true. Answer: Yes, but less so. The cost of housing is still rising slower than for other core goods [...]
Tax Reform: The Wheels Are Beginning to Turn
Posted in Budget, tagged Budget, Taxes on February 18, 2011 | 4 Comments »
My first column for the Christian Science Monitor (first appeared here): America’s tax system is broken. It’s needlessly complex, economically harmful, and often unfair. It fails at its most basic task, raising enough money to pay government’s bills. Because of Washington’s love affair with temporary tax cuts, it’s also increasingly unpredictable. Americans deserve a simpler, [...]
How’s the U.S. Economy Doing? A Blogger Word Cloud
Posted in Economy, Macroeconomics on February 17, 2011 | 4 Comments »
Tim Kane at the Kauffman Foundation is out with his latest survey of economics bloggers (full disclosure: I am both an adviser to the survey and a participant in it). My favorite feature is a word cloud of adjective that respondents offered to an open-ended question about the U.S. economy: Uncertainty still reigns (as it should), but ”recovering”, [...]
Does the President’s Budget Raise Taxes or Cut Them?
Posted in Budget, tagged Budget, Politics, Taxes on February 15, 2011 | 8 Comments »
Here’s a quick multiple choice quiz about President Obama’s new budget. Over the next ten years, would the budget: a. Increase taxes by $819 billion b. Cut taxes by $2 trillion c. Increase taxes by $1.6 trillion d. All of the above. If you answered (d), you have a fine future [...]
From Timid Teenagers to Overbearing Parents in Just Six Weeks
Posted in Life, tagged Cats on February 13, 2011 | 9 Comments »
In early January, Esther and I discovered a mother cat and two kittens living under our deck. We’d been petless for several years, but after months of discussion had still not settled on what our next pet should be. (There is a moral here about the burden of choice, procrastination, and other ideas in behavioral [...]
Nice NYT Chart of Debt Limit Votes
Posted in Budget, Politics, tagged Debt, Politics on February 12, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Over at the New York Times, Jackie Calmes surveys the brinkmanship of debt limit politics. Accompanying her piece is a lovely reworking by Amanda Cox of my charts showing how Democrats and Republicans have voted in past debt limit showdowns: I particularly like the horizontal spacing (no missing years). One benefit it that it aligns the [...]
Treasury Offers Some Good Ideas on Mortgage Finance
Posted in Finance, tagged Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, GSE, Housing on February 11, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Today was a big one for housing finance. Treasury kicked things off with its much awaited report to Congress on “Reforming America’s Housing Finance Market.” And then the Brookings Institution hosted a full day conference on “Reforming the U.S. Mortgage Market.“ Both Treasury’s report and the conference showed that there’s still important debate about the [...]
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