On Campus - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 9:00 - 3 Comments
10 Quick Questions For NYU Economist Mark Gertler
If you’re not an economics major, you may not have heard of Professor Mark Gertler. In fact, it’s possible that some of the (undergrad) econ majors haven’t even heard of him. However, despite his low profile on campus, Gertler is one of the nation’s top economists.
According to a statistical analysis of thousands of economics papers, Gertler is the 14th most cited author in the world (a sign of his influence on the field), coming in just behind National Economic Council Director Larry Summers (#13) and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman (#12).
Gertler is a long-time publishing partner with now-Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. According to Gertler’s CV, the two were co-authors on 9 papers. Much of their work focused on monetary policy – precisely what Bernanke is now determining.
Get Gertler’s take on the recession, his work with Bernanke, and whether or not any of us will be able to get a job after the jump. Continue…
National - Friday, April 3, 2009 12:19 - 0 Comments
Unemployment Rate Reaches 8.5%
Although there have been some signs of life in the economy in the past two weeks, the March job report isn’t one of them. The economy lost 663,000 jobs last month, pushing the unemployment rate up to 8.5%. The Labor Department reports that the economy has now shed 5.1 million jobs since the start of the recession. Continue…
National - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 10:44 - 3 Comments
Making Sense Of The Geithner Plan
For those of you who watched Obama’s press conference last night (liveblogged here), you may have noticed a conspicuously untouched topic: the administration’s new bank bailout plan. The President did touch on it briefly during his opening remarks, but not a single reporter asked a question about the plan.
This was weird since this plan is, I think, far more controversial than the proposed budget. Josh Marshall at TPM thinks it “means that most of the reporters think that issue is largely behind us now unless…the market or any clear economic realities say otherwise. For better or worse.”
Economists don’t feel the same way. Continue…
National - Friday, March 13, 2009 13:22 - 4 Comments
WSN Columnist Misses The Boat On Bank Nationalization
In yesterday’s Washington Square News, contributing columnist Ben Barnes laid out a confused and self-contradictory plan to deal with insolvent banks. He claims that nationalizing the too-big-to-fail banks is the wrong option and that the government should instead “facilitate the acquisition of the profitable [parts of the bank] by healthier competitors, and either wind down the unprofitable units or loan companies or investors money to liquidate them.”
But how would those toxic assets be priced? And how is loaning money to investors who might get burned on the assets they acquire and be forced to default any different than the current situation? I argue that it isn’t and that Barnes’ plan is as costly as nationalization (perhaps more so) without achieving the upsides of public ownership.
Barnes and I, however, agree on a lot, and he may be more in favor of nationalizing the banks than he realizes. Continue…
National - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 16:27 - 1 Comment
Economic Roundup: The Lorax Was Wrong!
Today, the stock market bounced back after getting thrashed for a week. The Dow Jones closed up nearly 380 points in its biggest gain since November.
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But don’t get your hopes up. NYU Professor Nouriel Roubini published another big prediction on his blog yesterday claiming that there will be at least one more bear market suckers’ rally in the stock markets. (A bear market rally is what happens when markets briefly make gains, causing people (i.e. suckers) to put money into the market only to watch it plummet again when everyone realizes the economy is still screwed). He also expects the markets to reach new lows over the next 12 to 18 months, and “he puts the chance of a severe U-shaped recession at 66.7 percent, and a more severe L-shaped recession at 33.3 percent.” Continue…
National - Monday, March 2, 2009 16:28 - 0 Comments
Law Blocks NYU From Tapping Scholarship Endowment
It’s time to add another item to the list of painful consequences of the current recession: NYU is unable to reach very far into its scholarship endowment for students because of a 30 year old law.
In 1978, a New York state law was implemented, designed to keep endowments of non-profit organizations (like NYU) from being depleted. Basically, it dictates that any endowment funds may be used so long as the organization doesn’t spend beyond the “historic dollar value” (HDV) of the endowment. The HDV includes the value of the endowment at its inception and any donations to the endowment beyond that. This means that NYU and other non-profits are only able to spend the appreciation their endowments have earned – none of the principal can be touched. Continue…
National - Friday, February 27, 2009 18:13 - 1 Comment
Ugly
And if you didn’t hear, the 4th quarter GDP numbers were revised, showing a much deeper 6.2% drop (previously estimated to be only a 3.8% decline). I’m sure glad the stimulus got trimmed down.
Graph via Calculated Risk.
National - Friday, February 27, 2009 10:33 - 0 Comments
Obama Vs. Stock Market
The apparent antagonism between Obama and the stock market has been striking. The day after his historic election victory the Dow Jones dropped 5 percent, after Geitner’s fail-plan announcement the Dow fell 4.6 percent, when the Obama signed the Stimulus bill the Dow dropped 3.6 percent, and after Obama’s speech on Tuesday it dropped 1.1 percent. Since inauguration day, the Dow Jones has lost about 12 percent with significant drops correlated with significant events in the Obama presidency.
So, does this mean the stock market hates Obama? Continue…
Featured, National - Thursday, February 26, 2009 17:37 - 6 Comments
White House Releases Ambitious Budget
As promised in his policy speech on Tuesday, President Obama released his budget recommendation and spending plan today, focusing heavily on building a financial base for universal health coverage, creating a cap-and-trade system on fossil fuel emitters, and rescuing the financial system. The plan recognizes the huge deficits this year (estimated at $1.75 trillion) but sticks to Obama’s commitment to cut budget deficits in half by 2013 (which would be contingent upon a number of factors: the phasing-out of the Bush tax cuts, a large draw-down of troops and resources in Iraq, etc.).
More about the plan and the right-wing response after the jump. Continue…
National - Tuesday, February 10, 2009 13:32 - 0 Comments
Senate Passes $838 Billion Stimulus Plan
As President Obama spoke at a town hall meeting in Florida early this afternoon, the Senate finally pushed through the compromise stimulus bill. 3 GOP Senators (Olympia Snowe-Maine, Susan Collins-Maine, and Arlen Specter-Pennsylvania) and unanimous Democratic support passed the bill, 61-37.
It ended up costing slightly more than the House bill ($819 billion) but the vast differences between the two promise a battle in House/Senate negotiations. Continue…
