The new numbers for August are in and we are looking at 304,000 homes in "some state of default" and 91,000 families losing their homes. And this is all, as I just said, during the month of August ( Read more... )

Recently, I have become very interested again in the problem of how people actually feed themselves in less legalistic and economically integrated societies. It is the success or lack thereof in these endeavors that gives rise to the patron/client networks I have been posting about recently, be they in the Philippines, in criminal networks or in ( Read more... )

Now that the mortage market is breaking into bits and pieces, it is hardly surprising that claims to advance knowledge are now bubbling to the top. Indeed, some of the people mentioned in the article are professionals of the appropriate discipline, and put there money where their mouth this, already months ago pulling money from the funds that are ( Read more... )

Some of the comments I received on my post about 401K discussions at my company eventually led to further and further research on the web, bottoming out in the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) family of market valuation theories. Empirical analysis seems to suggest that at least some form of the medium EMH theory holds for the analyzed stock ( Read more... )

Judging from the newspaper scans that _MuttiOfRCK_ sent me, the European newspapers are unhappy about the fact that the European Union member states wont put the screws on Iran, despite the fact that Germany is now the dominante exporter of machine parts to Iran and Austria the dominant importer from Iran (natural gas, via a new pipeline they are building, ( Read more... )

An interesting article on the ins-and-outs of branding and quality from the LA Times.