Econintersect: Click Read more >> below graphic to see today’s list.
The top of today’s reading list lists some of the stupidest things that people in finance say, some almost habitually …….. and the last article last article gives data for the valuation of real estate markets around the world.
- Stupid Things Finance People Say (Morgan Housel, The Motley Fool) Hat tip to Russell Huntley who adds one more stupid thing:
“The deficit will kill the economy.”
- A Vault for Carbon Dioxide (Dave Levitan, Scientific American)
- Behind the Pentagon’s doctored ledgers, a running tally of epic waste (Scot J. Paltrow, Reuters)
- Effective Corporate Tax Rates (Bruce Bartlett, The New York Times)
- Why Banking Systems Succeed — And Fail (Charles W. Calomiris and Stephen H. Haber, Foreign Affairs, Council on Foreign Relations)
To remain competitive, modern economies need to establish banking systems capable of providing stable access to credit to talented entrepreneurs and responsible households. Why are such systems so rare? How can it be that a sector of the economy that is highly regulated and closely supervised works so badly in so many countries? The crux of the problem is that all governments face three inherent conflicts of interest when it comes to the operation of their banking systems. First, governments supervise and regulate banks while looking to them as sources of government finance. Second, governments enforce the credit contracts that discipline debtors on behalf of banks while relying on those debtors for political support. Finally, although governments must spread the pain among creditors in the event of bank failures, they also simultaneously look to the most significant group of those creditors — bank depositors — for political support.
- Solar Dominates New US Generating Capacity (Pete Danko, Earth Techling) Hat tip to Naked Capitalism. Through three quarters of 2013 21% of new generating capacity in the U.S. is solar, The same three quarters in 2012 had 7% solar.
- Ben Bernanke and Why Forward Guidance Matters So Much (Dan Ritter, Wall St. Cheat Sheet)
- Disruptions: If It Looks Like a Bubble and Floats Like a Bubble … (Nick Bilton, The New York Times) Is social media a new bubble? See also what Dean Baker had to say.
- Appointmentpalooza in the Senate? Don’t Bet on It (Molly Ball, The Atlantic) Republicans still have many ways to hold up votes on nominees.
- The Most Overvalued And Undervalued Housing Markets In The Developed World (Stephen Perlberg, Business Insider)
