The Latest from Cafe Hayek <http://www.cafehayek.com/hayek/> ------------------------------
- Sometimes, you can't lose the "we" (by Russell Roberts)<#12167ffce04a7af4_1> - Understanding what happened (by Russell Roberts) <#12167ffce04a7af4_2> - The deficit (by Russell Roberts) <#12167ffce04a7af4_3> - Uncharted territory (by Russell Roberts) <#12167ffce04a7af4_4> - On the Importance of the Extent of the Market (by Don Boudreaux)<#12167ffce04a7af4_5> Sometimes, you can't lose the "we" (by Russell Roberts)<http://www.cafehayek.com/hayek/2009/05/sometimes-you-cant-lose-the-we.html> Posted: 21 May 2009 03:48 PM PDT I'm flying on Virgin America where I can watch TV and blog at the same time. Just saw a Saturn ad that said something like this: "If you buy a Saturn and lose your job, we'll make your payments for nine months." Wonder what they mean by "we." Sometimes, you can't lose the "we."<http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=101007A> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=uhOP-rtyOxo:SjhPmOhBBlg:yIl2AUoC8zA> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=uhOP-rtyOxo:SjhPmOhBBlg:dnMXMwOfBR0> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=uhOP-rtyOxo:SjhPmOhBBlg:F7zBnMyn0Lo> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=uhOP-rtyOxo:SjhPmOhBBlg:V_sGLiPBpWU> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=uhOP-rtyOxo:SjhPmOhBBlg:gIN9vFwOqvQ> Understanding what happened (by Russell Roberts)<http://www.cafehayek.com/hayek/2009/05/understanding-what-happened.html> Posted: 21 May 2009 03:05 PM PDT I am scheduled to interview Riccardo Rebonato tomorrow for EconTalk. His book, Plight of the Fortune Tellers<http://www.amazon.com/Plight-Fortune-Tellers-Financial-Differently/dp/0691133611/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242942477&sr=8-1/invisiblehear-20>is one of the best things I've read about the crisis. Maybe *the* best. Written before the crisis, Rebonato warns of the dangers of the techniques being used at the time by both firms and regulators to assess the riskiness of their portfolios. He has a lot to say about probability, risk, and the seductive romance of the ill-suited applications of advanced mathematics. Best of all, it's very well-written and though at times, very ambitious, it is always accessible to the non-practitioner. He has a fascinating discussion of "economic capital," the amount a firm would hold on its own to avoid the risk of bankruptcy. He argues that firms will hold too little capital because they will rationally ignore the spillover effects a collapse of their firm would have on other insititutions, so-called systemic risk. But a firm doesn't want to go bankrupt. It may take too much risk and end up bankrupt anyway. Rebonato also points out that bondholders and stockholders have different goals for the firm. Bondholders want enough profitability to get their money back but do not share in any upside risk. Stockholders generally wnat more risk even though there is the risk of bankruptcy. For a naif like myself, this raises the question of why these institutions have both stakeholders with such conflicting goals. And the managers in these publicly traded companies would seem to have different goals as well. A few semi-random questions, a few of which I hope to ask Rebonato tomorrow. If it's hard to assess risk, and therefore hard for regulators to specify what is "enough" capital, how would an unregulated firm choose economic capital to reassure bondholders and stockholders that their firm is a good risk? Why did firms choose such radically different levels of riskiness when they faced similar constraints? Some people argue that the reason firms took on so much risk was because they were publicly traded. Didn't investors know about the moral hazard problem? Was "too big to fail" an important, crucial, or irrelevant factor in the risk profiles these firms ended up with? What role does mark-to-market play in risk assessment? How did the ratings agencies distort choice if at all? (He seems to think it did.) How much did Basel II distort choice, if at all? (He seems to think it did.) Rebonato also observes that the 1990s reduced profit margins because of increased competition, encouraging innovation as a way to achieve yield. That's generally good. But Rebonato implies that firms continued to take bigger and bigger risks as a way to sustain yield. Why didn't self-regulation slow or stop this? <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=frg6DwlsTzk:oIux2A3wZqM:yIl2AUoC8zA> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=frg6DwlsTzk:oIux2A3wZqM:dnMXMwOfBR0> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=frg6DwlsTzk:oIux2A3wZqM:F7zBnMyn0Lo> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=frg6DwlsTzk:oIux2A3wZqM:V_sGLiPBpWU> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=frg6DwlsTzk:oIux2A3wZqM:gIN9vFwOqvQ> The deficit (by Russell Roberts)<http://www.cafehayek.com/hayek/2009/05/the-debt.html> Posted: 21 May 2009 02:19 PM PDT A little perspective. The deficit is expected to be $1.8 trillion this year. That's this year alone. That is $6,000 for every man, woman, and child. Does anyone think this living beyond our means is money well spent? Kind of bites into those $2800 of savings<http://www.cafehayek.com/hayek/2009/05/how-will-you-spend-your-2800.html> . <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=Hp-7iPDTet8:5J1caosuiq4:yIl2AUoC8zA> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=Hp-7iPDTet8:5J1caosuiq4:dnMXMwOfBR0> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=Hp-7iPDTet8:5J1caosuiq4:F7zBnMyn0Lo> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=Hp-7iPDTet8:5J1caosuiq4:V_sGLiPBpWU> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=Hp-7iPDTet8:5J1caosuiq4:gIN9vFwOqvQ> Uncharted territory (by Russell Roberts)<http://www.cafehayek.com/hayek/2009/05/uncharted-territory.html> Posted: 21 May 2009 11:27 AM PDT [image: Debt-to-gdp]<http://www.cafehayek.com/.a/6a00d834518ccc69e201156fa7a0e8970c-popup> >From Nick Schultz <http://blog.american.com/?p=633> via Greg Mankiw<http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/05/fiscal-future.html> . <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=vpkHYWqBV0Y:cGAIlmhSRCw:yIl2AUoC8zA> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=vpkHYWqBV0Y:cGAIlmhSRCw:dnMXMwOfBR0> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=vpkHYWqBV0Y:cGAIlmhSRCw:F7zBnMyn0Lo> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=vpkHYWqBV0Y:cGAIlmhSRCw:V_sGLiPBpWU> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=vpkHYWqBV0Y:cGAIlmhSRCw:gIN9vFwOqvQ> On the Importance of the Extent of the Market (by Don Boudreaux)<http://www.cafehayek.com/hayek/2009/05/on-the-importance-of-the-extent-of-the-market.html> Posted: 21 May 2009 09:37 AM PDT James Gwartney's 2008 Presidential Address to the Southern Economic Association is outstanding. It's entitled "Institutions, Economic Freedom, and Cross-Country Differences in Performance" and is published in the April 2009 edition of the *Southern Economic Journal* (Vol. 75, pages 937-956). Here's an especially important paragraph (from page 946): Our modern living standards are almost entirely the result of investment, entrepreneurial discovery, and gains from depersonalized trade - trade between people who do not know each other and often never meet. As Adam Smith noted long ago, the division of labor is limited by the extent of the market. Much like a telephone or an Internet system, a market economy is a network good. As the size of the market expands from the local town or village to the region, nation, and beyond, network participants derive larger and larger benefits from trade, specialization, and economies of scale. For those connected to the global market, this system generates employment opportunities, high productivity per worker, and a vast array of consumer goods that are available at almost unbelievably low prices. This network system makes high-income levels and living standards possible. <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=jrqKLPt8UFA:FJ-4ZBoniRA:yIl2AUoC8zA> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=jrqKLPt8UFA:FJ-4ZBoniRA:dnMXMwOfBR0> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=jrqKLPt8UFA:FJ-4ZBoniRA:F7zBnMyn0Lo> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=jrqKLPt8UFA:FJ-4ZBoniRA:V_sGLiPBpWU> <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/%7Eff/CafeHayek?a=jrqKLPt8UFA:FJ-4ZBoniRA:gIN9vFwOqvQ> You are subscribed to email updates from Cafe Hayek<http://www.cafehayek.com/hayek/> To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now<http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailunsubscribe?k=RD87GWo2xMyNcdDv2g6ct6FC7Lk> .Email delivery powered by Google Inbox too full? 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