News From Respected Sources

• Unemployment Insurance Fraud: Chile Has Solution 2012/02/08
  Like other government hand-out programs, the unemployment insurance system suffers from a substantial fraud problem. The Washington Post reports that 90 D.C. city employees and 40 former employees are being investigated for grabbing UI benefits to which they were not entitled. The cost of this fraud has been about $800,000 since 2009. It’s not hard to rip-of […]
  Chris Edwards
• “Financial Stability” Analysis in Bank M&A 2012/02/08
  Editor’s Note: H. Rodgin Cohen is a partner and senior chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP focusing on acquisition, corporate governance, regulatory and securities law matters. This post is based on a Sullivan & Cromwell LLP publication. A recent acquisition approval order of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the “FRB”) provides t […]
  H. Rodgin Cohen, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP,
• The Real Effects of Financial Markets 2012/02/08
  Editor’s Note: The following post comes to us from Alex Edmans and Itay Goldstein, both of the Department of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, and Wei Jiang, Professor of Finance at Columbia University. In our paper, The Real Effects of Financial Markets: The Impact of Prices on Takeovers, forthcoming in the Journal of Finance, we provide evidence o […]
  R. Christopher Small, Co-editor, HLS Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation,
• Freakonomics Poll: Have You Tried a Commitment Device? 2012/02/08
  (Photo: Alan Cleaver)Our latest podcast, “Save Me From Myself,” is about the use of commitment devices. (You can download/subscribe at iTunes or get the RSS feed.)A commitment device is a sort of mind trick to help you accomplish a goal that you don’t quite have the willpower to achieve on your own. Sometimes we need a contract with ourselves, or a little fi […]
  Freakonomics
• Same Sex Marriage in Hawaii 2012/02/08
  In 1993, the Hawaii Supreme Court held that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.  In 1996, Hawaii voters approved a constitutional amendment overruling this decision. In 2011, the state created civil unions for same-sex couples. I presume that what Hawaii did in its referendum was invalid under the Ninth Circuit panel’s decision yesterd […]
  Gerard Magliocca
• Whence comes this sudden wave of economic determinism? 2012/02/08
  All of a sudden it is pulled out of the closest as a weapon against Charles Murray, such as by Paul Krugman (and here and here), Rortybomb, David Frum, and others.  Bryan Caplan brings some sanity to the debate: I’m baffled by people who blame declining marriage rates on poverty.  Why?  Because being single is more expensive than being married.  Picture two […]
  Tyler Cowen
• *An Economist gets Lunch* 2012/02/08
  I am pleased that Publisher’s Weekly has offered a starred review to my forthcoming book: Enlightened consumerism, not ideology, is the surest path to tasty and responsible dining, argues this yummy gastronomic treatise. Economist and restaurant critic Cowen (The Great Stagnation) takes readers along as he eats, shops, and cooks in a diversity of spicy setti […]
  Tyler Cowen
• Wired’s Embarrassing Whitewash of Foxconn 2012/02/08
  Wired’s Joel Johnson has written a stunning bit of PR for Foxconn, now-controversial supplier to the consumer electronics industry, duly wrapped in credibility-enhancing guilt over Western materialism. The article, “1 Million Workers. 90 Million iPhones. 17 Suicides. Who’s to Blame?” pretends to be about Foxconn’s factories. But Johnson admits he’s a tech to […]
  Yves Smith
• Links 2/8/12 2012/02/08
  Your blogger needed to spend most of the last two days crashing, for no apparent cause. Hopefully I will be more energetic going forward. Tiny primate ‘talks’ in ultrasound AFP How America made its children crazy Asia Times. Boy, does this ring true. Outlook bleak on Olympic cheats Aljazeera Mediterranean seagrass could be hundreds of thousands of years old […]
  Yves Smith
• Mortgage Settlement Wrangling Continues, Banks Balking at Schneiderman MERS Suit 2012/02/08
  The Administration, through the nominal head of the bank settlement negotiations, Iowa attorney general Tom Miller, has moved its final deadline for a deal yet again, this time to Thursday. One event of the day was a non-event. New York AG Eric Schneiderman has scheduled a conference call to the media on the settlement for 6 PM, then postponed it indefinitel […]
  Yves Smith
• Highway Robbery by Republicans by Michael D. Tanner 2012/02/08
  Anyone still wondering why there is a disconnect between grassroots limited-government conservatives and the Washington establishment need look no farther than the latest highway bill currently making its way through Congress with support from Republican leaders in both houses. The Senate version, SB 1813, would cost $109 billion over two years. The House bi […]
  (author unknown)
• Redistinguishing “Ought” from “Is,” or Why I Like the World Less Than Marvin Does 2012/02/08
  Let me be the latest to thank Marvin, for making an outstanding contribution to First Amendment scholarship that gives us this prime occasion for discussion, and Danielle, for making the discussion happen. I want to take issue with an important part of Marvin’s argument.  Because I’m going to be contrary, I first want to emphasize not just my deep admiration […]
  Gregory Magarian
• Architectural Trusteeship 2012/02/07
  With regard to traditional public forum spaces, the Supreme Court has imposed certain duties on governments as “trustees.”  These duties include a responsibility to ensure access to public parks, streets, and (most) sidewalks, and adherence to a principle of anti-discrimination (althouth it may not include a duty to preserve any forum spaces in perpetuity, o […]
  Timothy Zick
• Marshall Auerback: The Elephant in the Room is Spain, Not Italy 2012/02/07
  By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist and hedge fund manager. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives Another day andthe markets remain fixated on whether Greece comes to a “voluntary” arrangement with its creditors. The key word is“voluntary” because the myth of “voluntary compliance has to be sustained so that those deadly credit default swaps a […]
  Yves Smith
• Another Log for the Government Spending Multiplier Fire 2012/02/07
  At the center of the debate over efforts by policymakers to “stimulate” the economy with government spending is the issue of fiscal multipliers. Some economists argue that government spending can be a free lunch: an additional dollar of government spending increases GDP by more than one dollar. Other economists say that government spending is not so free: an […]
  Tad DeHaven