Scott Sumner on the efficient markets hypothesis

He doesn't find much use in discarding it.

It's along the same lines as Will Wilkinson's objections to "inefficient market" models of regulation: they don't include irrationality in the regulators. In fact they tend not to model the regulators at all. This is standard in economics; show a socially inefficient outcome according to the theory and suggest a regulation to fix it. Public Choice is the school that attempts to model government agents as well, but its conclusions are not as popular or oft-used as traditional models of markets. Sumner's entry has a small taste. Read more.

David Bowie and Klaus Nomi on SNL

Singing "The Man Who Sold the World":


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Stewart v. Cramer

I enjoyed the interview on The Daily Show, if only for the "gotcha" moments using old Cramer footage, but I told my friends that Stewart readily confused normal activity on the stock market with stupid and unethical activity from banks. He does not have a good grasp on this stuff and his brand of comedic journalism is best used to illuminate hypocrisy.

Megan McArdle explains it better. Read more.

Taking Economics

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