tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-275958792011-10-17T02:33:26.941-07:00Fair and balanced comments about the world from the everyday perspective of a welfare-state citizen.Matsnoreply@blogger.comBlogger911100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-77210815056429457042009-02-09T14:58:00.001-08:002011-10-17T02:17:07.342-07:00

Liquidity crunch in global financial market, Long-term security food supply, disruptive supply chain and energy security are main global risks that need to be resolved. To reduce risk effectively, risk assessment, risk transfer and risk mitigation must be taken into account. The issue is how can we reduce the risk in global financial market and what action should be taken?First, we need to assess

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-36890096602976536142008-12-29T11:34:00.001-08:002008-12-29T11:34:08.599-08:00

Is a "Recession" really going on in US economy? Is US currently in the state of recession? Are US citizens face-to-face with recession? Are people living under the fear of ending up with loss of their jobs, losing into stack markets, going bankrupt, heading to ever highest inflation in the economy, huge downfall in property rates and a lot more.....Recession is a state when country's GDP or Gross

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-23107174257087366302008-11-26T13:46:00.001-08:002008-11-26T13:53:17.718-08:00

It's a beautiful thing to behold. It represents scarcity, value, glory and prestige but most of all it represents stability. As these months pass, more and more of my friends who thought I was nuts for suggesting we return to a commodity backed currency over our inflationary, prone to radical abuse monetary system are beginning to seriously consider what was once out of the question - gold.We are

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-760788766268529032007-03-22T12:14:00.000-07:002007-05-01T14:08:02.795-07:00

ST. HENRI DE LEVIS, Que. - Premier Jean Charest said Wednesday he doesn't have to ask Ottawa for permission to cut Quebecers' taxes.Charest, campaigning in a tight election race, announced he would pass on $700 million - coming Quebec's way in the form of new equalization payments - as a tax cut to middle-class Quebecers."I am the premier of Quebec," he told reporters who questioned whether the

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-68386095331463499172006-08-31T13:21:00.000-07:002011-10-17T02:29:58.030-07:00

Penny Boss phone card Lucky Minutes phone card Continental phone card by Virginie MontetWith home sales tumbling to a two year low, real estate agents looking for innovative marketing techniques to boost sales have found that a work of art hooks a buyer better than a fresh coat of paint.From coast to coast, "staging" homes is quickly becoming the industry standard in a highly competitive real

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-37064211295649482792006-08-26T11:28:00.000-07:002007-03-22T11:32:12.872-07:00

When Kirk Jones jumped over the guardrail at Niagara Falls last week and fell 180 feet alongside 150,000 gallons per second of rushing water, traditional explanations for his leap were plentiful. Jones' parents said he had lost his job and was depressed. A suicide expert pointed out the appeal of dramatic farewells. And everyone called the jump suicidal: Jones is the first person to survive a

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146870929034745022006-05-02T16:14:00.000-07:002006-05-05T16:15:29.096-07:00

BCA President Michael Chaney in the WSJ, proving that international comparisons are what you make of them: We are particularly concerned that there is no overarching plan or vision for Australia’s tax system… Mr. Costello’s review, which has confirmed that key areas of the Australia’s tax system are not competitive and need immediate reform, provides the conceptual groundwork for a program of

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146870668217044682006-03-16T14:09:00.000-08:002006-05-05T16:11:08.280-07:00

Most analyses of the cost of the war in Iraq fail to take adequate account of the relevant counter-factuals. This paper by academics at the University of Chicago GSB is a notable exception. They conclude that not only are the costs of intervention on a par with the pre-war containment strategy, but that the war will lead to large improvements in the welfare of the Iraqi people. (via DBRB)

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146870551330569542006-03-12T16:07:00.000-08:002006-05-05T16:16:59.913-07:00

The FT interviews the (thankfully) retiring editor of sister publication, The Economist: One of his most embarrassing covers, according to Emmott, was in March 1999, about a subject that should have been simple Economist territory: the price of oil. It had its roots in a lunch with an oil company executive, where everybody started musing that, with the oil price at $10, what would happen if it

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146850647096401882006-01-12T22:13:00.000-08:002006-05-05T10:37:27.096-07:00

On blog@stefangeens.com, Stefan gives "A guided tour of English-language Swedish blogs": Fortunately, there are many English-language bloggers that are connected to Sweden in some way, so I thought I might take you on a guided tour of the anglo-Swedish blogosphere (Defined as blogs where a majority of the writing is in English, and thus accessible to outsiders)Thank you for a good list of

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146850750544715112006-01-10T22:27:00.000-08:002006-05-05T10:39:10.553-07:00

The Swedish Newspaper Dagens Industri this morning published an article that tried to explain the much debated weakness of the Swedish Krona during the spring. According to the article, the U.S. Homeland Investment Act could provide a useful clue. The HIA has let U.S. firms repatriate profits earned abroad during 2005 and a Dollar/Euro chart suggests that it has had a dollar positive

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146864966225958532006-01-10T13:57:00.000-08:002006-05-05T14:36:06.226-07:00

Open thread, all posts except spam are most welcome. Bid for the watercolour painting below at the Swedish birdwatcher's auction. The proceeds will be used for the benefit of the "victims of the earthquake catastrophe" in South-East Asia, SOF says.

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146850940422957552006-01-05T13:01:00.000-08:002006-05-05T10:42:20.423-07:00

Good news for me: Even though the ecosystem ranking for this blog has fallen from "Flippery Fish" to god knows what slimy little organism, the blogger himself is now within the ranks of the "Other Estimated Strategists". All according to a fixed income investor survey on the Swedish bondmarket carried out and published by Dagens Industri:Other estimated strategists on the Swedish bondmarket are .

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146850968110798862006-01-04T13:33:00.000-08:002006-05-05T10:42:48.113-07:00

Shortly after an earthquake occurs in the U.S. its Geological Survey reports it a list of "Recent Earthquake Activity" on its homepage. Nonetheless, a strong earthquake in the Californian Gulf occurring 9.32 CET wasn't reported by Bloomberg until over an hour thereafter, 10.36 CET (yes, I have checked the time conversion). When Bloomberg's story hit the screens, currency markets and the European

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146851047295055562006-01-02T10:40:00.000-08:002006-05-05T10:44:07.296-07:00

A friend of mine recommended the site mathschallenge.net for those interested in mathematical puzzles and challenges, including programming problems. I haven't had time to try it, but it looks good, with several problems of different difficulties posted each month. Perhaps something for Abiola, on his site Foreign Dispatches such problems sometimes appear, or for Jan Nordegren posting almost

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146851074815008802005-12-21T12:33:00.000-08:002006-05-05T14:05:53.703-07:00

Per square meter prices for condos in the central Stockholm region has decreased recently, according to statistics from brokers, diagram above (SEK/m^2). A temporary effect or the impact of signals from the Riksbank, the Swedish Central Bank, that interest rates are soon going to be hiked from today's record low level of 1.5% p.a. As most households here fund their house or condo at short

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146851136605583242005-12-19T09:56:00.000-08:002006-05-05T10:45:36.606-07:00

I don't know if it is because of the headline of the latest post, or if it is the lack of policing (my bad), but comment spam relating to money-making has apparently flourished here. Furthermore, a commercial enterprise in the finance-sector has asked to place a banner on this blog, paid for on a monthly basis. I'm most fluttered. Still it's not yet clear to me about what to post on a blog, and

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146861228845216872005-08-25T14:00:00.000-07:002006-05-05T13:33:48.853-07:00

This blogger evidently took a long and unannounced vacation. It was not really vacation from writing; it was more the case that the texts I write for a living - about news with an impact on the Swedish bondmarket - got increasingly demanded and spare time hence increasingly scarce. Because of almost everyday practice from blogging in English? Maybe - anyway here is a text in Swedish by Liza

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146861317719307762005-05-18T10:40:00.000-07:002006-05-05T13:35:17.720-07:00

Amid faltering job-growth pressures have risen on the Riksbank to cut rates. There is hence a fierce debate focused on these two issues going on here in Sweden right now; the job-market and the central-bank policy (here is the latest contribution, in Swedish). Rather than adding anything to this, which seems more than fully covered by mainstream media, I would just like to comment on a very

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146861502762199422005-04-26T09:33:00.000-07:002006-05-05T13:38:22.766-07:00

As I was writing about the bond-yield conundrum from the perspective of household savings in countries that are rising or recently have risen from poverty, Institutional Economics have apparently done the same thing. There, John Quiggin is quoted as writing "there is no convincing micro story as to why people in poor countries should want to save massive amounts", in direct opposition to my

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146861725268023232005-04-25T10:39:00.000-07:002006-05-05T13:42:05.273-07:00

Interest rates for long-term gov't guaranteed loans (yields on T-Bonds in the US) having fallen back to where they were when Greenspan in February called the low rates a "conundrum". Hence an opportunity to get back to the discussion on why most countries today have such an unusually low interest rate levels, at odds with economists repeated predictions of higher rates. For us in Sweden, this

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146861813886980982005-04-15T10:11:00.000-07:002006-05-05T13:43:33.886-07:00

Some of us that are writing about the economy, especially with applications to finance, are sometimes getting away with earning almost free lunches. At least we sometimes get good paid by stating the bleeding obvious. If demand rises relative to supply, prises increase! Regions where this rise is the strongest will be net importers of the good in question!From the Wall Street Journal via

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146862034154892502005-04-06T09:10:00.000-07:002006-05-05T13:47:14.156-07:00

The number of new job vacancies were down for yet another week, according to the latest weekly report from the Labour Market Administration. Now the picture is beginning to look less optimistic than it did in the beginning of this year and in the end of last. The Riksbank wrote in its latest Inflation Report under the headline "Signs of improvement in the labour market" that "the number of new

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146862162998965182005-03-29T10:15:00.000-08:002006-05-05T13:49:23.000-07:00

Despite GPD growth above trend, the Swedish labour market has so far failed to recover. The debate on this gained new strength as business confidence weakend and household's inflation expectations plunged, according to a report released last week by the economic research institute NIER. The Central Bank, the Riksbank, was by NIER's head critizised for running a too hakish policy, a critique that

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146862393793655232005-03-21T12:01:00.000-08:002006-05-05T13:53:13.796-07:00

It's not only the USA, most large first world economies' governments are running deficits amounting to several percentage of GDP. From a bondmarket perspective, it's a conundrum why economists think that long term interest rates are 'artificially' pushed too low. Why, first world governments are holding rates up by flooding the markets with bonds. According to the Financial Times, Standard &

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146862494965694792005-03-10T09:22:00.000-08:002006-05-05T13:54:54.966-07:00

Despite the rapid growth of Swedish GDP, the employment situation fails to improve. Day before yesterday, Statistics Sweden released figures pointing to a shrinking labour-market during the last quarter of 2004, while production was lifted (although at a slightly slower pace) by a strong productivity development. Yesterday, the Labour Market Admin. reported disappointing news for the February

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146862522492456242005-03-09T12:57:00.000-08:002006-05-05T13:55:22.493-07:00

Economists have to an increasing extent tended to over-estimate the monthly inflation-rate in Sweden. Are they using an old map that lacks e.g. the recent trend towards inexpensiveness, "billighetstrenden" in retail? Here is what one analyst wrote yesterday a propos the soon to be announced Swedish February CPI: The February CPI figure, due Friday, is expected to print 0.1% according to

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146862628862229392005-02-28T23:48:00.000-08:002006-05-05T13:57:08.863-07:00

Retail Sales Above Expectations But Prices Decline - SCB, HUISwedish retail sales for February increased 6.9% YoY, faster than the consensus forecast 5.2% (Bloomberg). Retail prices on mostly food fell 0.7% during the month, and on mostly durables they fell 3.6%. According to the Swedish Research Institute of Trade, HUI, whome publishes the figure together with Statistics Sweden, SCB, the fall in

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146862743643864182005-02-21T08:06:00.000-08:002006-05-05T13:59:03.656-07:00

One of the large public Swedish pension funds, AP3, indicated last week that they had sold out their entire holdings of (Swedish) bonds, among those the inflation-protected. Considering the long-term nature of the funds' cash-flows, which the bonds probably to some extent matched, this must be seen as is a huge bet on an (faster than implied by the yield curve) increase in long-term interest

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146862795478487952005-02-17T13:59:00.000-08:002006-05-05T13:59:55.480-07:00

In Greenspan's testimony yesterday, he seemed to embraced the view most economists share today: that the world's long term interest rates are unexplicably low. Good for economist then; not even the guru can explain this, how could we? For instance, DeLong is happy to quote: "The Fed chief said it was hard to explain why long-term interest rates have declined in the face of the U.S. central bank's

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146862855472586632005-02-14T00:09:00.000-08:002006-05-05T14:00:55.473-07:00

Sixty years after the allied air raid that probably killed more than 35 000 people in Dresden, mostly civilans, the terror-bombing is still a crime against humanity that is not forgotten. And with the inevitable and tragic logic of violence, it has now become a propaganda tool for Nazis.

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146863008078371282005-02-11T10:45:00.000-08:002006-05-05T14:03:28.080-07:00

Allowances to emitt carbon di-oxide, the bulk bi-product from burning fossil fuels, are now trading at the nordic electricity exchange Nord Pool: CO2 Allowances The allowance are given under the EU Emission Trading Scheme, and the purpose is to "counter the threat of greenhouse gases". Currently trading slightly above 7Eur per (metric) tonne, it would cout about 3Eur to buy allowances to burn a

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146863054764319022005-02-09T13:50:00.000-08:002006-05-05T14:04:14.766-07:00

A note for those interested in the relationship between expected risk and expected return. This relationship makes itself felt for instance in the negative correlation between moves in index-option volatility and the index-value itself, and is sometimes referred to as volatility feedback. Simply put: the reward for risk should be proportional to return variance.Motivation: consider a two-year

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146864570687731482005-01-27T09:29:00.000-08:002006-05-05T14:29:30.696-07:00

The costs for the war in Iraq are increasing, reports the Washington Post: "The latest war request would push the total cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and other efforts since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to $277 billion, according to the CBO. That figure well exceeds the inflation-adjusted $200 billion cost of World War I and is approaching the $350 billion cost of the Korean

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146864682764763362005-01-25T10:31:00.000-08:002006-05-05T14:31:22.766-07:00

Is the Swedish Central Bank, the Riksbank, sliding from its inflation-rate targeting? Or will it have to cut the repo-rate in the face of the currently low inflation despite the central bank governor's strong and pronounced bias towards hiking rates? This is the topical discussion after recent decreases in market expectations in the future repo-rate in the wake of the Governor's speech last

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146864899967473132005-01-17T11:57:00.000-08:002006-05-05T14:34:59.966-07:00

The Swedish paper Ny Teknik, published by the Engineer's Organization, recommended these Klein Bottles as christmas gifts for those who "already had everything" and an interest in mathematics too. I didn't notice it in time for christmas, maybe next year?Here is a short background from the vendor's site:In 1882, Felix Klein imagined sewing two Möbius Loops together to create a single sided bottle

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146865044016278252004-12-28T10:10:00.000-08:002006-05-05T14:44:36.476-07:00

An overhaul of the U.S. social security system is widely discussed these days. This is in sharp contrast to when parts of the Swedish public pension system was implemented as private accounts - politicians avoided virtually any debate ahead of the decision. After the decision however, it met broad public criticism. As the system does not allow policyholders to pick separate stocks, but requires

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146865090900813292004-12-20T08:43:00.000-08:002006-05-05T14:45:59.700-07:00

Open thread, feel free to post. I'll be watching.

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146865199818116582004-12-14T08:55:00.000-08:002006-05-05T14:45:51.383-07:00

The defenders of the old ways are having increasingly hard times as the information revolution continues to rage. First on the front page of the New York Times web-edition, it is now reported that:Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database: "[G]oogle, the operator of the world's most popular Internet search service, plans to announce an agreement today with some of the nation's leading

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146865314551540352004-12-07T09:55:00.000-08:002006-05-05T14:45:43.936-07:00

Two Swedish bloggers have recently been told to stop by their day-time job bosses. Today, DN reports that the head of the "Confederation of Swedish Enterprise", formerly the Swedish employer's organisation has told one of their economists to stop blogging. But he won't, according to his own short comment in DN. Earlier, a journalist at the state-run Swedish television network, SVT, was asked to

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146867808397211532004-11-30T10:42:00.000-08:002006-05-05T15:23:28.400-07:00

There is a study out that is stirring up quite some debate in the blogosphere. At the one hand it shows that adopted children do not tend to inherit their parents social well-being in terms of family income, as do biological children. At the other hand, it claims to show that drinking and smoking habits are transmitted from parents to children irrespectively of the parenthood is biological or

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146867752844619352004-11-29T22:13:00.000-08:002006-05-05T15:22:32.846-07:00

Cosma Shalizi points us to an interesting discussion about classical mechanics. Why is the concept of force that central in the field, asks Frank Wilczek, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics this year: "Newton's second law of motion, F = ma, is the soul of classical mechanics. Like other souls, it is insubstantial. The right-hand side is the product of two terms with profound meanings. ...The

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146867716656568942004-11-29T20:43:00.000-08:002006-05-05T15:21:56.656-07:00

Go on and post on just everything! Expect to find comments on wide ranging subjects, from macroeconomy and investments to excerpts from the New York Times on Chinese art. Thanks to www.wingsparrotlets.com for the picture above, and Anne for the pointer. (Note to spammers: I do quite some gardening in here, deleting, banning IP's and such.)

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146867607911980442004-11-23T23:21:00.000-08:002006-05-05T15:20:07.913-07:00

For some reason, unknown to me, Tyler Cowen is supporting the myth that increasing productivity is posing a threat, even in the long run, to large groups of people in a free market economy. He quotes from Jane Galt the following: "Something that conservatives, and especially libertarians, have been slow to grapple with is that the more productive our society gets, the greater the possibility that

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146867575944236802004-11-22T01:13:00.000-08:002006-05-05T15:19:35.946-07:00

Greenspan didn't really say anything he hadn't said before in his speech on Friday. It must have been the timing that made the dramatic fall in U.S. assets that followed Greenspan's remarks:"It seems persuasive that, given the size of the U.S. current account deficit, a diminished appetite for adding to dollar balances must occur at some point."but also"The inability to anticipate changes in

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146867542986112322004-11-17T10:57:00.000-08:002006-05-05T15:19:02.986-07:00

Here is what Mr "Strong Dollar" is recently said, according to Bloomberg that reported that "U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow speaks about the U.S., European and global economies and the outlook for economic growth. He is speaking [in] London": 3) BN 10:49 *SNOW SAYS STRONG DOLLAR IS U.S. POLICY 4) BN 10:47 *DOLLAR FALLS; SNOW SIGNALS NO AGREEMENT TO STEM ITS DECLINE 6) BN 10:45 *SNOW SAYS

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146867501650193482004-11-10T23:55:00.000-08:002006-05-05T15:18:21.656-07:00

Most birds that visit us during the summer have already moved south. Still some geese are moving on their way cross the country from the north. I saw some of them weekend before last in a couple of neat vedge formations (they sure seem to know their fluid mechanics!). Here's a picture of greylag geese that I borrowed from the Univeristy of Lund's site for Waterfowl Research.Come back soon will

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146866241251577752004-11-08T21:07:00.000-08:002006-05-05T14:57:21.253-07:00

Foreign Dispatches serves us an example of how commercial TV-networks are, or at least ought to be, chasing the median viewers' taste, simply because, as Abiola puts it, "it would be commercial madness to do otherwise". In this case the chase is along a political left-right scale. This is someting that leads away from the earlier discussion of the failure of commercial media to fulfil the diverse

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146865978864862272004-11-04T11:27:00.000-08:002006-05-05T14:52:58.866-07:00

Looking at the exit polls, its clear that voters beliefs' about the so called War on Terror are neatly aligned with the way they voted. Bush voters apparently thinks that the occupation of Iraq is a part of the fight against international terrorism. This pretty much confirms the poll results newsweek got in the beginning of September: about half of those asked thought that Saddam was "directly"

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146867976887946822004-10-21T01:29:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:26:16.890-07:00

There's a short but interesting post up at Arnold Kling's blog. It is asked whether "imperfect government regulators [can] protect imperfect investors from themselves"? On the one hand it is argued that markets are efficient, which should speak in favor of deregulation. On the other, indications of market irrationality should speak in favor of regulation.Now, markets are efficient in part because

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146868023441997852004-10-18T13:54:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:27:03.443-07:00

We already have one winner in the U.S. Presidential Elections. Today Bloomberg has a hedge-fund manager praising the mertits of the betting exchange TradeSports:Iowa Presidential Futures Market Surpassed by Dublin Exchange... Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- The University of Iowa's market forU.S. presidential futures, founded 16-years ago, has beenovertaken by a Dublin-based exchange that is now 25

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146868100188198552004-10-17T23:21:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:28:20.190-07:00

Greenspan held a speech on Friday concerning the runup in oil prices. You have probably by now read at least a couple of comments upon it. Otherwise, here are a few of them, in the NYT, Washington Post, some more critical from Barry Ritholz, and have my take as well when you're at it: Greenspan really tried to tell the markets not to worry - oil prices will come down, he says. Look at long term

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146868277203948112004-10-11T23:13:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:31:17.203-07:00

Today, oil prices continued their climb and, as WSJ (subsription) writes, "Benchmark light, sweet crude futures for November settled at a new record of $53.64 a barrel, up 33 cents on the New York Mercantile Exchange". For an analysis of this development, I have been reading Barry Ritholz's highly interesting posts on the subject and have from my much more limited perspective quite naturally very

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146868308661881632004-10-08T10:48:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:31:48.663-07:00

Today at 14.30 CET the U.S. employment report is due. Economists expect about 150 thousand jobs to have been added during last month. It is however unclear how much of the effects from hurricanes such as Ivan that were visible at the time these expectations were formed. Historically, severe hurricanes in the Mexican Gulf has had an important effect on the non-farm pay rolls numbers, making them

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146868373818117512004-10-06T23:10:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:32:53.823-07:00

How come that with so many channels competing for the viewer's attention on the TV, there can be, as in the lyrics to the Bruce Springsteen song, as many as "57 CHANNELS (AND NOTHIN' ON)"? Even though some of us have tastes that differs from each others, free media such as TV and radio often display a strong tendency to serve only the mainstream. Indeed, even though the preferences of the

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146867904875408562004-10-05T13:02:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:25:04.876-07:00

We've seen ugly pictures of the victims of aerial bombing in the Swedish press, even in the G. W. Bush-friendly leading Swedish conservative daily, Svenska Dagbladet.Daniel Davies comments the bombings in a post called "The Leg question" at Crooked Timber: "Apparently, we are bombing the town of Fallujah. Apparently, we are doing this because the residents refuse to co-operate with our wishes by

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146868509088619682004-10-05T10:05:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:35:09.090-07:00

Greg Ip writes in the WSJ about Friday’s big event, important not only for the financial markets, the last employment report before the elections. It is likely to impact the debate due later that day between Bush and Kerry on domestic issues. Ip presents the White House's bullish estimate, and the market's more modest one. A Cleveland Fed report is cited in order to explain why the so called

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146868567264179202004-10-01T09:56:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:38:11.160-07:00

Reading about yesterday's debate between Kerry and Bush, you could find one reassuring piece of information. The U.S. intelligence crisis, revealed by the WMD flap, is not entirely bottomless. At least the U.S. President claims to know who attacked his country on September 11:USATODAY.com: "The president, fusing the Sept. 11 attacks with the war against Saddam Hussein, said he never dreamed of

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146868969491845672004-09-29T23:41:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:42:49.493-07:00

An article in Slate strongly urges, that "buying any products made by Third World labor" should be avoided. The basic argument is simply that one should not exploit the poor. Going a bit beyond the most simplistic reasoning, however, one should quickly come to issue the reverse recommendation: Let the poor in and compete with their products on the same conditions as the rest on the market! So

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146869021207573442004-09-27T22:49:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:43:41.210-07:00

Few people, at least among those regularly reading newspaper could have stayed unaware of the current situation on the oil-markets. With crude-oil prices nearing $50 (WTI spot and short dated futures), about double that of the (now obsolete?) OPEC target interval, this is quite natural. However, in spite of this, markedly less people, even among sector analysts, seem to know, or fail in my humble

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146869054753877042004-09-25T01:28:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:44:14.756-07:00

In spite of the strong influence from the English language that doomsayers think will soon make an end to the Swedish language, that of the Honour and the Heroes, it is still going strong. Our language was flexible enough to transform and survive under the heavy German influences during Hanseatic times. We really shouldn't need to worry about it as it nowadays finds use in more areas than before,

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146869103175355812004-09-22T10:45:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:45:03.176-07:00

As you already have heard, the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee hiked the key interest rate by 25 basis points. The motivation however, was weak. Taken out of its policy context, it would probably have been read by most market participants as a motivation for leaving the rate unchanged, rather than hiking it. You can find the main part of their statement at Brad DeLong's webjournal

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146869165642345682004-09-21T21:59:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:46:05.643-07:00

Some of the last remaining industries in the Hammarby area just south of central Stockholm are now being demolished to make room for housing construction. This crane has been preserved as a memory of all work that was done in the harbour. General Motors, for instance, had a large plant for assembling autos at the same dock. More reading in the language of the Heroes and Honour here and here.

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146869253562755522004-09-20T20:38:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:47:33.563-07:00

The media is a powerful thing, as Abiola Lapite points out in this post:John McMillan and Pablo Zoido [...] use bribe prices in Peru to see "which of the democratic checks and balances--opposition parties, the judiciary, a free press--is the most forceful"? They found thatMontesinos paid a television-channel owner about 100 times what he paid a judge or a politician. One single television

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146869293040925202004-09-19T01:55:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:48:13.043-07:00

I'm picking up some good macro commentary from comments. Does a pretty good job in summarizing the current situation, I guess: There has been considerable investment in productivity enhancing technology, while there has not been a large investment in expanding capacity. Consumer demand is to an extent satisfied from abroad, and there is not enough domestic demand to warrant capacity expansion.

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146869382349422742004-09-19T01:43:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:49:42.353-07:00

If I remember it correctly, U.S. forces used to point out to the media that they were taking "extraordinary" measures to protect civilians, as in this story from last year. Now, it seems, they have sadly been brutalized to a point where they don't seem to care that much anymore. Newspapers (like this) report on one of this weeks U.S. air raids on Iraq, quoting "The Health Ministry [which] said

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146869458303273892004-09-14T22:04:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:50:58.306-07:00

Following up on posts and comments (Brad DeLong) about the credibility of the Federal Reserve when it comes to controlling inflation, I pick the following from my office desk, dated Sept 1. As the bondmarkets - the nominal and the real-yield bonds - show; the Fed is expected to neutralize most of the inflationary impulse from swings in the labor-market:The strong market impact the non-farm

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146869496137313092004-09-13T22:09:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:51:36.136-07:00

Six years ago or so, I bought a small, inexpensive - or at least affordable - camera: one for ordinary 35mm film with a zoom lens covering focal widths between like 35-105mm. Very useful - so useful that I actually wore it out in a couple of years. The electrically powered lens, or rather the switch controlling in, broke down. Later on, I bought a similar camera, only that it had a 3 Mpixel

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146869552701740902004-09-13T09:39:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:52:32.703-07:00

The Euro opposition has increased. Now, one year after the Swedish Euro-referendum, when membership in the European currency union were turned down, the opposition to the Euro has stiffened further. According to Sweden's leading tabloid, Social-DemocraticAftonbladet, six out of ten Swedes are opposed to the Euro. Partly to blame, perhaps, is that all the doom and gloom that the proponents

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146869660377842452004-09-10T14:04:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:54:20.376-07:00

Abiola Lapite is the first one out in what Daniel at Crooked Timber sees as a possible continuation discussion on "The Wisdom of Crowds". A propos the purported failure of a certain crowd to give answers with good precision to some general questions Abiola doesn't:"think that one can draw from the results obtained the conclusion that markets will display the same erratic judgment as crowds do...

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146869721547351412004-09-09T22:10:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:55:21.546-07:00

Chris asks in a comment to an earlier post about "Swedish consensus in favor of government at or above 50% of GDP? Why do Swedes not talk of 'welfare queens' etc?". Now, there are lots of such talk, but still the welfare-state survives because its popular support. How come?From my everyday experience of being a welfare-state citizen, two explanations pop up on the top of my head. The first one is

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146869774446386612004-09-08T11:06:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:56:14.446-07:00

Once again we've been able to find cheap spare parts to our car from scrapyards linked to the internet. Many Swedish auto-scrapyards display their spare part inventories in "Bildelsbasen". Highly recommended! Search and find the part you want at a location near you, call them up and strike a deal! All business is local so I'll conclude in the language of the Heroes and Honor: Det är mycket latt

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146869826615884942004-09-06T22:18:00.000-07:002006-05-05T15:57:06.720-07:00

How could they kill the children!? An important question that has been asked in the press during the recent days, for a perfectly horrible reason. One could also ask how they could wage war. Even though most politicans who have done so have been less outspoken than the Chechnyan terrorists about the targets of their actions, children have most often been included. Hiding the children behind

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146906985629080482004-09-03T10:52:00.000-07:002006-05-06T02:31:23.083-07:00

The pre-emptive war in Iraq might have caused lots of damage to global security, at least according to experts quoted in the following newspiece from Reuters via ABC-News. With benefits offered to nuclear N.Korea, and Iraq invaded with no signs of WMD's the message the U.S. have sent should be quite clear: "You've got to become North Korea, or you will be Iraq".ABCNEWS.com : Iran Sees Nuclear

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146907544913969112004-09-03T09:23:00.000-07:002006-05-06T02:25:44.916-07:00

Kevin Drum listened to Bush's speech at the Republican convention yesterday. He might have found an indication of what is to be released in the job report due today at 14.30 CET.The Washington Monthly: "BUSH SPEECH....There was no mention in the speech of job creation. Something tells me this means that Friday morning's job numbers aren't going to be so hot."Update: As a background, here are

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146907930441624862004-09-01T23:10:00.000-07:002006-05-06T02:32:10.443-07:00

Yesterday, I took my youngest kid to his scheduled monthly medical examination. The nurse greeted us by asking where his mother could be, did she lost her way in the corridors maybe?Welcome to 2004 folks! Although we are still biological beings with all the differences between the sexes that mammals usually display, we do not:1. Lock in mothers into their houses with the children, banning them

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146911829047007532004-08-31T11:49:00.000-07:002006-05-06T03:37:09.056-07:00

Hard disks have become cheaper than CD:s. At least the 200GB hard disk sold at 999 SEK at the local computer store (according to an ad in today's Dagens Nyheter) is cheaper than the 20 pack of CD:s sold at a discount in the grocery store at 99 SEK. The CD:s come with hard covers containing two CD:s each. 5 SEK/GB for the HD, 7 SEK/GB for the CD. One SEK is currently 1/7.55 USD.

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146911909699301552004-08-24T23:21:00.000-07:002006-05-06T03:38:29.700-07:00

As you might have noticed, Cosma Shalizi is back with several highly recommended posts. He has some interesting fresh thoughts about corporate governance. But my favorite among these is one pointing to a paper by Smolin, debunking a widespread scientific myth - that of the usefulness of the so called "anthropological principle". As Cosma thought, I actually found it to be "quite accessible" as

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146912232011823452004-08-24T22:36:00.000-07:002006-05-06T03:43:52.013-07:00

Arnold Kling joins Alex Tabarrok in a renewed effort to teach us that there is no free lunch. If you use it you pay for it - or even worse, if the lunch is free you probably pay too much. Let me first thank these prominent teachers and economists for this deep insight. Let me then thank Arnold Kling for his good class on TCS on the so called "adverse selection" problem. Even though he seemingly

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146912351642846252004-08-23T21:34:00.000-07:002006-05-06T03:45:51.643-07:00

David Meyer adds lots of links to the blogosphere as well as references to academic papers a propos the discussion that started with Alex Tabarrok's claim that minimum requirements for housing standards are unhelpful. Still, the most supportive quote for Alex' case I've seen is put forth by DeLong, saying that "Alex is in fact teaching [his students] to think like economists". A statement I

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146912571867576712004-08-21T01:08:00.000-07:002006-05-06T03:49:31.870-07:00

Tyler Cowen explains why the rate of economic growth is important, emphasizing that:"had America grown one percentage point less per year, between 1870 and 1990, the America of 1990 would be no richer than the Mexico of 1990."Abiola wholeheartedly agrees, and declares that he is glad to see that also Yglesias does so. And indeed, the question should really be who does not?However, when comparing

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146912729559047172004-08-19T23:01:00.000-07:002006-05-06T03:52:09.560-07:00

Alex Tabarrok is telling his students that requiring apartments to have hot water is not useful to the tenants. How on hearth could he possibly have come up with such an idea? The answer, not surprisingly, is economic theory and the oversimplified assumptions upon which it builds. As Daniel Davies writes at Crooked Timber: about "The correct way to argue with Milton Friedman... if you give away

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146912793750239812004-08-18T22:46:00.000-07:002006-05-06T03:53:13.753-07:00

Arnold Kling continues the debate on happiness, leisure and taxes in the perspective of comparing Europe to the U.S. He does so in a post called European Productivity. I found this contribution to the discussion highly interesting, in this paper by Edward Prescott that Kling points to, my simple calculations and observations below is carried out in much greater detail. The qualitative

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146913026397760842004-08-17T21:59:00.000-07:002006-05-06T03:57:06.396-07:00

I've gotten a report from over there that their pharmacies actually offer penicillin in several different flavors. Well, we do have at least some of these flavors here in the Welfare-state too - but here they all taste just too awful much of penicillin. Our state-run monopoly has, to my knowledge, no good excuse to offer. Perhaps they're just lazy. Those of you who have tried to give the stuff to

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146913190609161932004-08-16T17:10:00.000-07:002006-05-06T04:11:50.950-07:00

Sometimes - espesially at bad times - it seems that science tells us that things are steadily falling apart. According to well proven results (in science such are a.k.a "laws of nature") from thermodynamics, disorder increases with time in any closed system. Happily enough, we are often enjoying the benefits of increasing, or at least maintained order in many of the open systems that we are a

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146913246886980132004-08-12T23:34:00.000-07:002006-05-06T04:12:19.500-07:00

Finally the summer heat has come to the North! Good temperatures for a bath even in lakes north of the Dalecarlia river (in "Norrland"). I love this country (sometimes)!

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146913306610734282004-08-12T22:42:00.000-07:002006-05-06T04:01:46.613-07:00

Sorry, I just have to follow up on my prevous post. Economists jumping on those in other fields in social sciences - it's just not very stylish. We are reminded, at this post by DeLong that standard economic theory fails to explain the observed levels of equity returns and interest rates. Economics is really "The Dismal Science". DeLong and others has found some hope that the problem is not due

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146913663669789102004-08-12T21:35:00.000-07:002006-05-06T04:07:43.670-07:00

Arnold Kling who usually writes about economic research writes about so called happiness research on TCS (and hosts a discussion about it on his EconLog):I am afraid that "happiness research" amounts to nothing but a flimsy excuse for left-wing academics to claim that they should be given control over how the rest of us live.Let me offer a final thought experiment. Suppose that you could choose

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146913817813642322004-08-12T15:54:00.000-07:002006-05-06T04:10:17.813-07:00

Suddenly we're there - in that part of summer where the nights get dark again. After two months of continous light, we Swedes are actually surprised to see the nights getting dark. We call it "the Darkness of August" (Augustimorkret). Technically, or at least astronomically speaking though, this is no different from the bright Nordic light we experience in May. Compare a "white" sheet of paper to

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146914060661863632004-08-11T22:33:00.000-07:002006-05-06T04:14:20.663-07:00

Weekend before last, this osprey was fishing in the Hammarby lake, just outside the central parts of Stockholm.Even though it might not be immediately clear from above picture, it is indeed an osprey, and here is a good picture if you want one (with sound too). Not that it is a very rare bird, what struck me was that it chose a water that is deemed not suitable for bathing by the health

Matsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27595879.post-1146914217033106312004-08-03T21:31:00.000-07:002006-05-06T04:16:57.036-07:00

Some consumption, it seems, rewards the consumer differently depending on the consumption of others. It may feel quite good to own a reasonably new car, at least until all the others buy brand new SUV's. To my knowledge, in economics this phenomenon is studied under the name of "relative utility", or "keeping-up-with-the-joneses-utility". Probably, this is something that could help to narrow the

Matsnoreply@blogger.com