Links

1. Teacher efficiency is analyzed in LA by the LA Times.  It turns out that what teachers are paid for are not related to their teaching effectivity.  The next step towards sanity would be to create these links, and to find some ways to actually fire the poorly performing teachers.

2. A survey from Fidelity suggests that a lot of people are borrowing against their 401(k)'s.  This is another factor keeping consumer spending high relative to private sector income.

3.  Tyler Cowen looks at whether it was the fiscal policy of Australia that has helped their economy avoid a deep recession. He mentions Australia's connection with China's economic demand, which seems to be the dominant variable. However, he leaves out their high trend inflation, which helps them avoid problems other central banks reach when they hit the zero bound.

4. A caricature of futurists. Not entirely inaccurate.

5. Spain's real debt is higher than it appears in Eurostat data.

About

I studied Bioengineering at the University of California at San Diego. While there I served as a trustee on the investment committee of the UCSD Student Foundation, a group that manages an endowment to fund scholarships. While in college I applied my interest in finance and economics by working as a summer associate at Clarium Capital Management, working part time my senior year, and joining full time when I graduated in 2006, staying there through August 2010. I am currently working as a portfolio manager at another global macro hedge-fund in the Presidio (And blogging about more directly market related ideas at their restricted blog). I’ve been focusing on quantitative finance, currencies, commodities, the interplay between finance and politics, demography and other long term trends.

Disclaimer: You shouldn’t consider anything on this site to be a recommendation or solicitation to buy, sell, or hold any securities or commodities. I’m not offering you investment advice. I or the company I work for may hold positions in securities that I mention.