I’ve been thinking a lot about how economics resembles a biological system. In biology, introduce a new species into an environment and the other organisms must adjust to it. I touched on this in my post on how monetary policy is like the movie Speed. The speed of the bus stays the same, everyone else better get […]
Germanwings Flight 9525 – some problems have no solution
I was watching CNN today about the terrible tragedy of flight 9525, where co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed a plane into the Alps, killing all 150 people on board. First off, this is an awful story. It’s one that evokes sadness, frustration, anger and vivid mental imagery. I can see and hear the captain trying to […]
Stocks are fairly valued, get over it
What drives stock valuations? Is it corporate earnings expectations? Overall economic growth? Treasury yields? I’ve gotten into a few debates about the relationship between treasury yields and valuation metrics. The problem is always causation. Do low interest rates cause people to pour money into stocks in a chase for yield? Is high inflation harmful to valuations […]
‘Violent reconciliation’ of markets to Fed rate hikes? Only if the Fed gets it terribly wrong
The fear mongers are out in force. Since job numbers have been improving, everyone seems certain that interest rates will rise. What does that mean? Just perusing Yahoo! Finance, rate hikes seem likely to tank stock markets and housing prices. After all, conventional wisdom says stocks are high because bond yields are low, and housing prices are […]
13 data narratives on crime in Chicago
I recently downloaded a Chicago crime data set at 1.2 gigabytes and around 5.75 million rows of data (1 for every crime committed since January 2001). First of all, kudos to the City of Chicago for making this data public. More kudos to Tableau for designing a product that makes it possible to quickly visualize […]
Failed states, failing cities? Comparing murder rates in American cities
We hear a lot about failed states, and we wonder what we as Americans should do. Sometimes the threat of a failed state goads us to intervene abroad to protect our interests. That might mean American business interests, it could mean preventing the setup of terrorist safe havens, or maybe we just want to give […]
Why Buffett is looking at German companies
In a past article, I explored which countries’ stock markets were safest for your money. Not long after, I saw this article on Warren Buffett taking an interest in German companies. Because Buffett seeks out value like a heat-seeking missile, I wanted to look into this. First, I turned to some Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED). A […]
Where corporations end and people begin
I saw a few interesting articles on corporate social responsibility today. The first one showcased a TED talk touting how we need to force corporations to be better citizens and help us end inequality. Now, I’m left of center on a few issues, but I have to break with anyone touting such nonsense. The Economist […]
Housing part III: are we back in the bubble?
In my initial article on house-price-to-rent ratios, I looked at how major US markets compared to each other in terms of one of my favorite real estate value metrics – price / rent (using Zillow’s ZHVI / ZRI as a standin). In part II, I examined recent trends by region for that same metric. Now I […]
Are we reliving the bubbles of the last 20 years?
In the late 1990’s, the internet bubble inflated and burst. In the mid 2000’s, we watched housing prices inflate and burst, along with stock prices again. Since 2009 we’ve watched stock prices climb higher and higher, and we’re left wondering, now, are we’re reliving past bubbles? Or are we at a fair valuation considering low interest […]