Do we have the capability to eliminate booms and busts in economic activity? The answer in my judgment is no, because there is no tool to change human nature. Too often people are prone to recurring bouts of optimism and pessimism.
June 11, 2014
It’s 9:30 in the morning at the New York Stock Exchange. A man presses a button that rings a bell and opens the exchange for business. Behind him is a giant billboard with 500 individual lights. Each light represents one of the 500 stocks in the S&P Index. On a typical day 485 bulbs may flash green signifying stocks that are...
March 13, 2014
“Do you have a Macy’s credit card?” asked the woman behind the counter. “No,” I replied shaking my head somewhat disdainfully side-to-side. “Who needs another credit card?” I thought. ‘Well, I ask because you can get another 20% off’ continued the woman. “Oh,” I said quietly to myself. “I’m getting 20% off because it’s on sale … and I can...
February 07, 2014
It was the end of a day as I sat in a local restaurant kvetching to a friend. Kvetching is Yiddish for complaining. I really love Yiddish because it often captures not only a word but the sound of feeling in the word. It’s spoken emotion. “It’s been a five-year secular bull market,” I kvetched. “So what’s the problem?” he asked. “...
December 05, 2013
The seven-year-old entered the building and walked through a dimly lit hallway. He stepped around the body of a drunken man passed out on the stone floor then knocked on the apartment’s steel door. The door was supposed to protect you from the outside world. The outside world was Charlestown and the apartment building was public...
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