FORA.tv Bio Ann Beeson Ann Beeson, a distinguished human rights advocate and litigator, joined the Open Society Institute in June 2007 as the director of U.S. Programs. She is working on the most acute challenges to open society in the United States, including race discrimination in the criminal justice system and immigration and national security policies that threaten human rights. Prior to joining OSI, Beeson was associate legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. Beeson has argued twice before the U.S. In June 2007, Beeson was named one of the 50 most influential women lawyers in America by the National Law Journal , and was also featured as one of American Lawyer magazine's 50 rising legal stars under the age of 45. Beeson graduated from Emory University School of Law, where she was editor-in-chief of the Emory Law Journal . Nick Cannon Jordan Coleman Jordan Coleman is a young man on a mission. Lupe Fiasco John O'Neal Russell Simmons To download this program become a member. rap
The price of everything “..Fed and ECB policies aim to reassure financial market participants rather than keeping them guessing. In the “good old days”, before quantitative easing, forward guidance and zero real interest rates, investors, asset managers, traders and bankers were forced to make difficult but educated guesses about the opportunities and vulnerabilities in financial markets. The danger of making a bad guess was, and should remain, an important restraint on excesses and systemic risk. “Today’s market participants are babied with excessively explicit “forward guidance”, supported by historically low interest rates and yields (especially in real terms) and central bank purchases if markets weaken. “Fed and ECB support for such “one-way” thinking promotes excessive complexity, new financial bubbles, too-big-to-fail financial institutions and systemic risk, as well as economic-social consequence. - Letter in the FT from Mr J Paul Horne, Alexandria, VA, United States. To read more,
Empirics and Psychology: Eight of the World’s Top Young Economists Discuss Where Their Field Is Going | Power Games The past few years have been tough on economics and economists. In a searing indictment written one year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Paul Krugman concluded that the central cause of the profession’s failure was the desire for an all-encompassing, intellectually elegant approach that also gave economists a chance to show off their mathematical prowess. Unfortunately, this romanticized and sanitized vision of the economy led most economists to ignore all the things that can go wrong. Last August, Graeme Maxton published a book arguing that “modern economics has failed us,” and this April, the New York Times hosted a roundtable “about how the teaching of economics should change in light of the financial crisis.” To get the pulse of a field in flux, I asked eight of the world’s top young economists to identify the biggest unanswered questions in economics and predict what breakthroughs will define it a decade or two hence. Stanford University; 39 Why are developing countries poor?
What Isn’t for Sale? - Michael J. Sandel Market thinking so permeates our lives that we barely notice it anymore. A leading philosopher sums up the hidden costs of a price-tag society. There are some things money can’t buy—but these days, not many. • A prison-cell upgrade: $90 a night. • Access to the carpool lane while driving solo: $8. • The services of an Indian surrogate mother: $8,000. • The right to shoot an endangered black rhino: $250,000. • Your doctor’s cellphone number: $1,500 and up per year. • The right to emit a metric ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere: $10.50. • The right to immigrate to the United States: $500,000. Not everyone can afford to buy these things. • Sell space on your forehead to display commercial advertising: $10,000. • Serve as a human guinea pig in a drug-safety trial for a pharmaceutical company: $7,500. • Fight in Somalia or Afghanistan for a private military contractor: up to $1,000 a day. • If you are a second-grader in an underachieving Dallas school, read a book: $2. Michael J.
Polanyi Was Right About Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand « A (Budding) Sociologist’s Commonplace Book I’m currently reading through some of Karl Polanyi’s less famous works. I had always thought Polanyi was not a fan of Adam Smith based on his amazing, “Oh, Snap!” worthy comment in The Great Transformation. Polanyi argues that Smith was wrong about the nautralness of the motivation to “truck, barter, and exchange” and that for most of human history, trucking, bartering and exchanging are nowhere to be found. In “The Place of Economies in Societies”, Polanyi shows a bit more love to Smith. Polanyi’s reading of Smith is equally helpful. Reference to the ‘hidden hand,’ which made the self-interest of the butcher and the baker ‘serve me with a meal,’ have been exaggerated out of all proportion. Given Gavin Kennedy’s recent work on the history of the invisible hand metaphor, and my own reading of the passage, I couldn’t agree more with Polanyi. But to reiterate the overall point of this post: Polanyi was right about Smith, and far less negative than I had originally thought.
Best New Ten in Twenty Ten « Jeffrey Tastes 2010 has been an interesting year in the food scene. Actually they all are. As you probably know, I concentrate my travels on Queens and pizza. These are the places which opened this year that made an impact in the world of Jeffrey Tastes. 10. 9. 8. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. The PBoC’s monetary supremacy over Brazil (but don’t blame the Chinese) Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega likes to blame the Federal Reserve (and the US in general) for most evils in the Brazilian economy and he has claimed that the fed has waged a ‘currency war’ on Emerging Market nations. As my loyal readers know I think that it makes very little sense to talk about a currency war and I strongly believe that any nation with free floating exchange rates is in full control of monetary conditions in the country and hence of both the price level and nominal GDP. However, here the key is a freely floating exchange rate. Hence, a country with a fixed exchange rate – like Hong Kong or Denmark – will “import” the monetary policy from the country its currency is pegged to – the case of Hong Kong to the US and in the case of Denmark to the euro zone. In reality few countries in the world have fully freely floating exchange rates. From Chinese M1 to Brazilian NGDP Guido Mantega’s focus on the Federal Reserve might, however, be wrong. Like this: Like Loading...
Bernanke Speech Makes Detailed Case for Fed Action Calling the persistently high rate of unemployment a “grave concern,” language that several experts described as unusually strong, Mr. Bernanke made clear that a recent run of tepid rather than terrible economic data had not altered the Fed’s will to act, because the pace of growth remained too slow to reduce the number of people who lack jobs. The federal government said on Wednesday that the economy expanded at an annual rate of 1.7 percent in the second quarter, slightly higher than its initial estimate of 1.5 percent but lackluster in normal times. Mr. “It is important to achieve further progress, particularly in the labor market,” Mr. In setting the stage for action when the Fed’s policy-making committee meets in two weeks, Mr. “Policies from Congress, not more short-term stimulus from the Fed, are the ingredients necessary for restoring growth in the American economy,” Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, said in a statement after Mr. Senator Charles E. Mr. Mr. Then, Mr.
Etats-Unis : le dernier investissement à la mode, c’est la mort Etats-Unis : le dernier investissement à la mode, c’est la mort "Pour les banques, vous valez plus cher mort que vivant" . Leur nouveau terrain de jeu est l’assurance-vie : On l’achète à son titulaire pour pouvoir spéculer sur la date de son décès. "On sélectionne des personnes gravement malades et on attend leur mort pour empocher le pactole" . Un marché de 35 milliards de dollars, en pleine croissance. Rendement à deux chiffres ! ("Banquiers : ils avaient promis de changer", une enquête de Pièces à conviction diffusée ce soir sur France 3) A propos Olivier Demeulenaere Olivier Demeulenaere, 48 ans Journaliste économique et financier Macroéconomie Macrofinance Questions monétaires Matières premières Cette entrée, publiée dans Actualités , Economie , est taguée actualité , assurance-vie , banksters , banques , cupidité , Etats-Unis , finance , investissement , maladie , marchés financiers , mort , rendement , spéculation .
The Fire Hose The price of admission to the first rank of economic celebrity, at least in the United States, is an introductory textbook – a means of establishing authority as a virtuoso performer over and above whatever popular appeal may be gained by other means, plus the opportunity, just possibly, to shift the focus of the entire profession slightly in one direction or another (not to mention the substantial income!) The gate is narrow. True, Milton Friedman never wrote a textbook (though he permitted a couple of enterprising students to publish their notes on his lectures and wrote a preface). And Robert Shiller, of Yale University, who is surely among the best-known economists of the present day, hasn’t bothered. Thus N. Each professor is unique. Almost all, in other words, have aspired to higher callings at one time or another – all but Tyler Cowen. Consider Cowen’s output last week on the blog – 34 items. Cowen does other things as well.