James Kwak
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Lucy Nicholson / Reuters The Curse of Econ 101, Cont’d
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Bettmann / Getty The Curse of Econ 101
When it comes to basic policy questions such as the minimum wage, introductory economics can be more misleading than it is helpful.
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Shannon Stapleton / Reuters The Perfectly Normal Ways Trump Can Enrich Himself as President
The president-elect's control over conventional economic policy could be worth more money than any conflict of interest.
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Bryan Woolston / Reuters The Tax Code for the Ultra-Rich vs. the One for Everyone Else
It’s as though there’s a separate set of laws for people with extreme amounts of wealth.
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Lucy Nicholson / Reuters California's Smart New Retirement Plan and the Industry That Opposes It
Many asset-management companies fear a program that would reduce something they depend on: consumers’ confusion.
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Jonathan Ernst / Reuters The Difficult Math of American Health Care
It’s not just Aetna: The way Obamacare handles the excessive costs of treatment simply doesn’t work.
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Scott Morgan / Reuters Hillary Clinton’s Weak Plans for Changing Wall Street
She’s proposing tweaks when it needs an overhaul.
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Carolyn Kaster/AP The Rich, the Poor, and Whether Tax Policies Live or Die
Obama's failed proposal to eliminate 529 plans illustrates the current state of American taxation: Reforms that benefit the middle class at the expense of the wealthy will never pass.
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Nabil Rahman/ProPublica How Not to Regulate
This past weekend's This American Life/ProPublica report confirms the worst of what many already suspected: The New York Fed has little independence from the industry it is supposed to control.
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Reuters Why Is Credit Suisse Still Allowed to Do Business in the United States?
The conventional wisdom is that revoking a large bank’s license can trigger potential systemic consequences. But that's not the case here.
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Reuters Why Won't Washington Take on Wall Street's Biggest Crimes?
The Justice Department has successfully convicted dozens of bankers for insider trading. But the big banks did something much worse and got away with it.
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Reuters Bitcoin and the Myth of Tech Utopia
The belief that every human problem can be solved with software forgets the human element inside all software.
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Silicon Valley's Paydays Are Outrageous—So, Where's the Outrage?
Lavishing executives with $20 million—or $100 million—is pointless and wasteful, whether the CEOs live in the Financial District or Mountain View.
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Reuters Jamie Dimon’s Original Sin: ‘America’s Best Banker’ Was Overrated From the Start
The lesson of JP Morgan’s historic resilience (and, now, record fine) is that its leader turned out to be painfully mortal, all along
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Reuters 5 Years Later, We've Learned Nothing From the Financial Crisis
Why haven't we destroyed the idea that destroyed the world?
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Forget 'Fabulous Fab': Here's Why Wall Street's Biggest Fish Always Slip Away
Behold the power of plausible deniability.
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The Price of Safety: Why Cheap Regulation Creates Expensive Crises
Do you want Boeing deciding if its airplanes are safe? Or JPMorgan deciding if its bets are sensible?
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Washington's Backward Retirement Policy: So Wrong, and Yet So Easy to Fix
We have more than enough money to protect Social Security. It's just going to the wrong people: private savers.
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Don't Cut Social Security!
Why reducing retirement benefits to pay down the deficit is a terrible idea
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Your 401(k) Is Out to Get You
Or, to be more precise, the mutual fund company that oversees your 401(k) plan is out to get you.
