Often, for some reason, when you want to make a simple point, before you know it it mushrooms into something much bigger. Like in this case, blasphemy. All I started out with was the notion that if we put a dollar value on something like an Arctic melt, or the extinction of species, we are making fundamental mistakes. Which invariably show in the way we reach the conclusions, presented as "scientific", that make us put such values on potential or
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Dorothea Lange Good Coffee May 1937 "Post office Finlay, Texas" The best of the lot must be the Daily Telegraph's headline: Economy firing on all cylinders as growth hits 0.6%. I mean, how does one trump that? Looks like they need to install extra cylinders just to grow 1%. I must admit I also really liked the claim that the UK economy will receive a £250 million boost from the Royal Baby™. Yes, in the United Magic Kingdom solid GDP
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Ever wonder what Bernanke is saying? Well, it boils down to this: at the same time that Jimmy Carter says the US doesn't have a functioning democracy, Ben Bernanke says the US doesn't have a functioning economy. Unfortunately, people understand what Carter says, though they may not agree with him, but they do not understand what Bernanke says, and that has nothing to do with agreeing with him or not. Moe likely it has something to do with the illusionary
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Detroit Publishing Co. Trinity Church and office buildings, New York 1915 French President Hollande declared on TV on his nation's national holiday that the recession in France is over. You can just see the discussions in the Elysee Palace: we can't say that!, well, we have some graphs that show a little recovery, we just need to hide the ones that don't, and the president desperately needs a positive message to look presidential on Quatorze Juillet, so why don't we
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From time to time, it's nice to look at a series of graphs, and let them tell their thousand words worth – each – of stories. In this case, I started out looking at US monetary base at the St.Louis Fed website and it sort of went from there. Curious trends and intriguing numbers, beyond what I would have thought. To refresh memory and avoid confusion, first a few definitions: The monetary base – base money, money base – is
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Dorothea Lange Family Trip May 1937 "Migratory family traveling across the desert in search of work in cotton at Roswell, New Mexico. U.S. Route 70, Arizona" Our roving reporter VK may have become a little less roving lately, he still keeps in touch by email from time to time and we have interesting exchanges. Put together, a series of these mails paint a nice picture of what he reads and thinks about oil production, credit supply, and the place in
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