Bloomberg is running a report on pending amendments to the BLS labor statistics which may result in sharply higher unemployment statistics in 2008/2009. The reasoning is that the BLS model’s mechanism to account for newly-created and recently-closed businesses does not consider the sharply higher number of closures over that time period. More recent data will not be revised till next February. The article is well worth a read.
A very interesting, disturbing, but perhaps unsurprising article in today’s FT, about how Russia may have tried to get China to simultaneously dump GSE securities on the market to exacerbate the US financial crisis. Sounds like a cross between international espionage and hostile takeovers, but scarier: Paulson claims Russia tried to foment Fannie-Freddie crisis
Jeremy Grantham and Rick Bookstaber debate Myron Scholes and Robert Reynolds on whether or not financial innovation boosts global growth. We found this particularly engaging since one of the debaters (Myron Scholes) was a principal at Long Term Capital Management and another (Jeremy Grantham) is a manager whose views we follow very carefully. As an aside, Grantham’s latest quarterly letter is a must read. There are a few particularly juicy exchanges towards the end, so it’s worth watching all the way through.
