I earlier described some disturbing details about the assets held by the San Diego County Employees Retirement Association. Our separate pension fund for city employees, the San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System, is another tale of local woe that I worry may have global implications.
Author Archives: James_Hamilton
Life on Saturn’s moon?
The mainstream media caught the story of apparent seas made of methane or ethane on Saturn’s largest moon Titan. But there was an even more interesting account about tiny Enceladus.
Disappointing numbers on inflation and retail sales
Macroblog and Calculated Risk had some discouraging graphs yesterday.
Caribbean ethanol imports
What happens when you mandate use of ethanol and heavily tax its importation?
Subprime fallout
New Century Financial Corporation, formerly one of the nation’s biggest subprime mortgage lenders, has had a spectacular trip up and even more spectacular trip down.
Fannie, Freddie, and Ben
Fed Chair Ben Bernanke had some excellent suggestions last week for congressional action on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Slower employment growth
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today that U.S. nonfarm payrolls, as measured by their survey of establishments, increased by a seasonally adjusted 97,000 workers in February.
Financial crises
Financial or banking panics were a recurrent theme in 19th-century U.S. economic history.
CAFE standards
Featuring prominently in the new energy plan from President Bush is a call for changes in the corporate average fuel efficiency (CAFE) standards that the Administration claims could reduce U.S. gasoline consumption by 5% over the next 10 years. Here are some of the reasons I’m not thrilled by that suggestion.
New feature: Econbrowser faces the data
We’ve added a couple of new features to the sidebar.