Finance Roundtable

By now you've probably heard that Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin, and Roger Myerson won this year's Nobel economics prize. With all due respect to all concerned, they're to economics as Dario Fo, Elfriede Jelinek and Wislawa Szymborska are to literature.

If you even want to attempt ...

Every once in a while an article comes along that is so wonderfully nutty that is just makes your day. The piece, by one Chan Akya in the always eccentric Asia Times ends with this gem of a conclusion:

Buddhism is forever associated with the principles of non-violence ...

What can I say? Lately, I've written a bit on executive compensation, noting that it seemed disproportionate and utterly unrelated to performance. But I would never have guessed that those same executives (as well as corporate directors) fully agree with all the above, as explained in this FT article ...

It's a sign of the times that when the biggest banks of the land announce the creation of a fund to buy debt securities affected by the recent liquidy drought, the reaction is indifference or even outright hostility.

No wonder. The cartoonishly-named M-LEC (Master Liquidity Enhancement Conduit) ...

Even if you have a pessimistic bent, the latest housing starts figures are dispiriting. They fell 10.2% in September, to 1.19 million units, well below the consensus forecast of 1.28 million units. This translates to a full 31% drop from year-ago levels.

Are we near the ...

The recent jump in oil prices into record territory has hogged the energy headlines. At the same time, many are wondering why sky high oil hasn't caused more economic damage. I believe part of the answer has to do with natural gas prices, which have held fairly steady for the ...

Mostly unnoticed, the IMF published its semi-annual World Economic Outlook today (here's the press release), which is always makes for interesting reading. As expected, it slashed its growth forecast for the U.S. in 2008 to 1.9%, versus the 2.8% it expected as recently as July.

Apparently, ...

I always thought that the term "brain-drain" referred to the emigration of people with high educational and skill levels from poor nations to rich ones. But maybe I'm too narrow minded. The author of The Economist's Europe.view column takes a much broader view of this concept:

A new ...

The famous NY-centric director has a deep, long-standing dislike of all things California. Apparently and not surprisingly, so do the editors of the NY Times.

Look at today's front page. The three top stories are:
-Reports Assail State Department on Iraq Security
-U.S. Prosecution of Muslim Group ...

Is executive pay destined to rise ever higher? The Economist's Business.view column thinks so and they turn to a rather unusual example, Joe Torre, the New York Yankee's former manager, to make its case.

To recap, Torre quit after a long, successful tenure (although his team hasn't ...