Author Archives: Mike

I think everyone has commented on this Bloomberg article, Wall Street Bonus Withdrawal Means Trading Aspen for Coupons.  People making six figures take a 20% hit to their bonus and all hell breaks loose. Example: “People who don’t have money don’t … Continue reading →

There was a recent book by two sociologists on academic achievement titled “Academically Adrift.”  College freshman took the “performance task” of the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) test (featuring such tasks as advising “an employer about the desirability of purchasing a type of airplane that has … Continue reading →

There was a brief debate focused on the following question: would the gains of the economy continue to accrue to the top 1% once the recovery started, or would the top 1% have a weak post-recession showing in terms of raw income … Continue reading →

I have an explainer on Why We Need a Volcker Rule online at The Nation.  Hope you check it out. Watching the Volcker Rule evolve, it’s clear that the lack of a regulatory agency closely associated with it is hurting … Continue reading →

Gina Patnaik and Aaron Bady have a post you should check out, On Privatization and Brutalizing Campuses: Turning to the images and language used to imagine the university might seem like a way to side-step more pressing questions such as: the … Continue reading →

To put today’s auto numbers, which we talked about here, in perspective, I’m going to use this chart from Calculated Risk Blog’s write-up of today’s auto numbers: Remember the Car Allowance Rebate System, or what was known as “Cash for Clunkers”? … Continue reading →

There’s no job numbers tomorrow morning, even though it’s the first Friday of the year.  What kind of leap year nonsense is this? Joe Weisenthal tried to cheer me up, noting that auto sales came out today.  And as Joe … Continue reading →

I, for one, really like the new emphasis conservatives are putting on so-called “social issues” over economic issues. When Rick Santorum says that he is worried about Satan attacking America, I believe that he believes that.  His worry that Satan … Continue reading →

A quick data dump post. Karl Smith gets this right: “If you look across the demographic survey’s what looks to be the biggest effect of the recession has been to delay adulthood for folks born around 1990.  Rather than graduating … Continue reading →

In Iceland, rock-throwing brought criminal justice to the financial sector, wrote down debts healing balance-sheets and lead to a strong recovery out of a terrible economic situation. Omar R. Valdimarsson, who has been covering Iceland’s recovery for Bloomberg, has this … Continue reading →