Robert Oak's blog

Friday Movie Night - Wealth Inequality

 It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

 

Considering the blockbuster new research on the beyond belief increase in income and wealth inequality in the United States, I thought some films on income inequality might be in order.

First up is a lecture from Harvard Economist Richard Freeman on how income inequality and globalization are threatening Democracy in the United States.

 

Derivatives, Remember Them? Obama's Legislative Proposal

A legislative proposal for derivatives regulation has been release from the Obama administration. The actual bill is IMPROVEMENTS TO REGULATION OF
OVER-THE-COUNTER DERIVATIVES MARKETS
(large pdf). Here is he U.S. Treasury overview of the bill in a press release.

First, what kills me is the Treasury calls OTC and CDSes financial innovation. I don't think mathematical fiction is a new science frankly. It's so strange to me that no one is looking to regulate these instruments themselves.

Ok, what's in the bill (or what is not in it)?

The Wall Street Journal:

Sunday Morning Comics - Redux Edition

Brought to you by economic cycles - Hip, hip hurrah! The Recession is over - redux!  Just ignore how the economy has sucked for a decade and you've been running on Visa and Mastercard all of that time.
Cup O' Joe

 

Good Morning! Rise and Shine! Get that Cup O' Joe...
break out the O.J....hang out with the pooch...time to check out the Funnies!

 

cash for clunkers, mike luckovich
Mike Luckovich

 

Friday Movie Night - The Century of the Self

 It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

 

With all of the media spin on both economic indicators as well as health care, I thought this week we'd take a little diversion from economics to look at mass psychology and it's role in creating public perception and opinion.

A BBC Adam Curtis documentary, The Century of the Self delves into this topic. Mass psychology is also the father of marketing and public relations.

The business and, increasingly, the political world uses psychological techniques to read and fulfill our desires, to make their products or speeches as pleasing as possible to us. Curtis raises the question of the intentions and roots of this fact. Where once the political process was about engaging people's rational, conscious minds, as well as facilitating their needs as a society, the documentary shows how by employing the tactics of psychoanalysis, politicians appeal to irrational, primitive impulses that have little apparent bearing on issues outside of the narrow self-interest of a consumer population.

Sunday Morning Comics - Pick Your Tiles Edition

Brought to you by Government Statistics - The Recession is over!  Just ignore that unemploymenthomeprices foreclosuresdeficitsindustrialoutputdecliningexportsconsumerconfidencefallingwagesdurablegoodsvixdeflation
creditcarddefaultcommercialrealestateinvestment stuff

Cup O' Joe

 

Good Morning! Rise and Shine! Get that Cup O' Joe...
break out the O.J....hang out with the pooch...time to check out the Funnies!

 

Timothy Geithner Can't Sell His House

 

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