Some Links

1. Tyler Cowen links to his article. He sees an inevitable shift towards fiscal austerity, though through no fault of the conservative movement. It contains a sentence that sums up "politics fails" without being disproportionally pessimistic: "Finally, effective political ideas are those that can still do good in half-baked form."

2. Arnold Kling wonders if soccer fans like the high luck factor because they are vaguely socialist.  I agree that the format is off - there probably is about as much luck in a soccer game as in the outcome of a baseball game. The difference is that baseball games are decided by series, which reduces the amount of luck. I think it is more likely that those who complained to Arnold had a position about soccer first, "I like the status quo," and came up with socialist sounding reasons for it afterward in an attempt to justify their positions.

3. Kartik Athreya, a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond recently wrote a paper (Link is currently broken) about how those who didn't spend quite a few years of their lives in an economic Ph.D program should not publicly express their views on macroeconomic policy. The reception to his piece in the blogosphere was not very positive. This negative reaction may be why the paper is no longer available.

4. Jeff Matthews explains that government failure isn't always a bad thing when the alternative is policy victory.

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.