I was basically writing this exact same thing: economics as a science is a poor excuse for science (hat tip to Kedrosky… again.) Economics is fascinating, because no one knows anything. Greider, in his excellent Secrets of the Temple said, in 1987: The ultimate test for soundness for any science was the ability of its […]

Okay, last post for a while on the economy. Macroeconomics fascinates me, mainly because I think it’s about as well-developed as psychohistory, so Monday morning quarterbacking is possible as in no other discipline. But other commentators comment better; if you’re really interested, you’ve found them. This post is simply a long rant aimed at getting […]

I read today that the market is at its lowest level since 2003. As a percentage of GDP (which calculation has the benefits of automatically adjusting for inflation and actual economic growth) it’s at its lowest level since 1995. I’ve updated the graph to show today’s change as well as focus in on 1982 to […]

I thought this was going to be more comforting than it turned out to be. Although, I have to say that it’s a lot more comforting now that I’ve added today’s market close. GDP and Total Stock Market Capitalization in Real Billions of Dollars This is a lot less comforting. Total Stock Market Capitalization as […]

“The US average growth rate of real per capita incomes over the last 190 years has been 1.8% a year, and the same rate over the last 10 years has been…. 1.8% a year.“ (Hat tip to Chris Blattman.)

I was just reading Nassim Taleb’s claim that with … the costs of the 2007-2008 subprime crisis, the banking system seems to have lost more on risk taking (from the failures of quantitative risk management) than every penny banks ever earned taking risks. And it occurred to me that due to the no arbitrage condition […]