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Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

15 Responses to “Late Afternoon Reading”

1. aramps Says:
   May 31st, 2011 at 4:44 pm

   from the reuters wire:

   http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/05/31/business/business-us-goldmansachs.html?hp

   wish there was more on this one…

   “Goldman Sachs invested more than $1.3 billion (786.1 million pounds) from Libya’s sovereign-wealth fund in currency bets and other trades in 2008 and the investment lost more than 98 percent of its value [...] Among the different proposals put forward by Goldman Sachs to recoup the losses was one in which Libya would get $5 billion in preferred Goldman shares in return for investing $3.7 billion into the securities firm”

   WSJ article originally, so apparently they haven’t eliminated all of their reporting staff yet.

2. Dow Says:
   May 31st, 2011 at 5:08 pm

   US Postal Service – Why does the USPS have to operate at a self-sustaining revenue stream? The Department of Defense doesn’t operate based on annual weapons sales.

   Mail service benefits everyone.

3. James Says:
   May 31st, 2011 at 5:14 pm

   Intolerable choices for the eurozone, Martin Wolf

   http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1a61825a-8bb7-11e0-a725-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz1Nxyo7cEK

4. Sidfinkel Says:
   May 31st, 2011 at 6:00 pm

   That BW article on the Post Office is just astounding, and not in a good way. This is not to say the article isn’t good, but what it says about the USPS and Congress is just, well just, well it just leaves one speechless.

   Here is one of the comments on the article.

   http://dismalpoliticaleconomist.blogspot.com/2011/05/mismanagement-and-incompetence-reign.html

   Good Grief

5. Lebowski Says:
   May 31st, 2011 at 6:04 pm

   Thanks for recommending the Townshend article. I remember what a huge ordeal it was back in the 80′s surrounding The Who’s final tour (although it wasn’t really their final tour – bit of a fake out).

   We’ve just posted a great leisure read about Giant Squid – a classic New Yorker article from 2004 (please note if you do read it that some info in the article is inaccurate – we have posted ‘updates’ near the bottom of the post). Anyway, it’s the kind of article that makes you consider how amazing it is that we know so little about our oceans (our planet). Enjoy: http://bit.ly/m4Qy7D

6. Sechel Says:
   May 31st, 2011 at 6:59 pm

   I think the borrowing cap is over-hyped hyperbole. As long as our trading partners sell us more than they buy from us the only thing a debt cap does is force China and other surplus countries to hold cash instead of bonds. And it has been argued that Treasury bonds are a way for the Fed to sop up excess liquidity which might otherwise be inflationary…

7. willid3 Says:
   May 31st, 2011 at 7:13 pm

   only good banker left? http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/opinion/31nocera.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

8. gman Says:
   May 31st, 2011 at 7:24 pm

   Farrel has lost it! The Reagan revolution have obviously been taken too far. But he is mixing his metaphors..commodities are “bubble” because they are too cheap? If this is as high as the China growth story and QE1 & 2 can take commodities..they are a bubble a real bubble not the type Farrel is talking about. I normally think he add insight and I liked the title, but then when I read it, he seemed DRUNK!

9. nofoulsontheplayground Says:
   May 31st, 2011 at 7:25 pm

   The USPS fix is quite easy. Either go to 3-day delivery – Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
   and use part time workers without benefits, or bankrupt it and privatize what’s left.

   Neither solution would go over well with the unions or the politicians.

10. willid3 Says:
    May 31st, 2011 at 7:28 pm

    wage growth. or not
    http://www.measuringworth.com/growth/

    February 22, 2011

    Annualized Growth Rates

    1980 to 2007 Unskilled wage = 3.34%

    1990 to 2007 Unskilled wage = 2.94%

    2007 to 2010 Unskilled wage = 1.23%

11. druce Says:
    May 31st, 2011 at 8:36 pm

    A wild and crazy essay on the history and forms of money and impact on human evolution –

    http://szabo.best.vwh.net/shell.html

12. Tim Says:
    May 31st, 2011 at 9:14 pm

    U.S. Postal Service –
    One only needs to visit their own local post office to see how incredibly inefficient they are. You can wait in line forever, likely meet a lazy, surly, dim-witted clerk, whose slower than a snail, who could care less about helping you, in a building that’s probably poorly maintained. It’s a third-world type organization, grown fat and lazy by union featherbedding, stupidity, and archaic hands-off management style.

    Time to blow it up and start over. First out, the morons in top management. Interim management contracted out to one or a consortium of turnaround firms. Maybe privatization. It’s a big mess and needs to be cleaned up.

13. Sechel Says:
    May 31st, 2011 at 9:26 pm

    Partially or fully privatizing mail delivery seems like a no-brainer. Why aren’t we following Europe’s example.

14. kaleberg Says:
    May 31st, 2011 at 10:22 pm

    The Post Office tried offering email back in the early 80s, but private companies forced them to shut their operation delaying email adoption by decades. (It was great. If your recipient didn’t have email, they just sent a physical letter. If they had an email box, they got it electronically.) Meanwhile, the Post Office was also forced to give up its monopoly on package delivery, one of its more profitable businesses. Basically, whenever the Post Office was making money, private companies demanded that they be the ones to make the money, and that would let them pay lower wages and less in benefits. At the time, I suggested letting FedEx, DHL and UPS have overnight delivery, as long as they matched the Post Office on first class and junk mail stamp prices. After all, they were private businesses; the free enterprise fairy would surely let them make big bucks delivering letters for a quarter a pop.

    To be honest, I find my Post Office experiences a lot nicer than most private business experiences. Have you ever gone to a bank branch? Have you ever had to deal with an insurance company? Compared to the typical medical insurer, the Post Office is almost god-like in efficiency and much more pleasant to deal with.

15. lunartop Says:
    June 1st, 2011 at 6:29 am

    I was recently quite surprised to here an American online bragging how he was getting 25MPG from his car and other American’s apparently being impressed with this because 40+MPG is pretty standard in Europe.