By James Kwak I’m starting teaching at the UConn law school this fall, so I got a folder of information in the mail about my retirement plan. UConn professors have a choice between a defined benefit plan (SERS, in which … Continue reading →
By James Kwak Last week I wrote an Atlantic column about the fundamental reasons why big banks are always screwing up. In particular, given the effects of leverage and the short-term incentive structure, it pays to have lousy risk management … Continue reading →
By James Kwak Michael Hiltzik (hat tip Mark Thoma) wrote a column lamenting the domination of the government deficit debate by the wealthy. He clearly has a point. The fact that Simpson-Bowles—which uses its mandate of deficit reduction to call … Continue reading →
By James Kwak From Sebastian Mallaby’s review of Robert Shiller’s new book: Psychologists have established that the key to happiness lies not in riches but in social esteem; therefore, Shiller says, financiers face powerful emotional incentives to balance profit seeking … Continue reading →
By James Kwak Usually the New York Times gives reasonably good financial advice—or, at least it avoids giving really bad advice. Today, however, Paul Sullivan’s column borders on the latter. The question is whether to take a pension payout as a lump … Continue reading →
The tragicomic events of the past few months—the London Whale (what are we up to now, $6 billion), Barclays-Libor, HSBC laundering money have prompted renewed interest in better, stronger regulation of the financial sector. Not that it’s … Continue reading →
By James Kwak Or, How the Republicans Get Away with It: “When Priorities informed a focus group that Romney supported the Ryan budget plan — and thus championed ‘ending Medicare as we know it’ — while also advocating tax cuts … Continue reading →
By James Kwak So the new Republican argument (which Mitt Romney was against before he was in favor of it) is that the individual mandate is an oppressive tax on the middle class. Cute, isn’t it, adopting John Roberts’s argument? … Continue reading →
By James Kwak In my Atlantic column on Thursday, I wrote the following about the Roberts Court’s decision to allow states to opt out of Medicaid expansion without losing their existing Medicaid funding: “What we are going to see is … Continue reading →
By James Kwak In the current issue of Democracy, Elbert Ventura discusses the history of a problem that I’ve brought up as well: the transformation of the Democratic Party into the party of tax cuts. Except, that with the Republican Party … Continue reading →