Recent goings-on at the Federal Reserve suggest that the governors are split on the issue of inflation: “But other Fed policymakers are less patient, believing it’s dangerous to let inflation linger so high for so long. For example, Michael H. Moskow, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, has argued that inflation tends to get stuck at a certain rate and becomes harder to bring down because businesses and consumers get into the habit of expecting price and wage increases to continue.” Of course, I’ve never been a fan of inflation – not really even the Friedmanesque brand of 3-5% per year. But yeah… consumers do get into the habit of expecting price and wage increases. If by “habit,” you really mean “respond to the inflation-driven market conditions,” because … Read entire article »

Whew… busy. Very busy. Our underwriting attorney has been fired, or quit, or took another job – these things are never made public which lets the rest of us gophers in the office toss about wild speculations and rumours. It’s not good for morale. Our department manager is returning from a month-long absence to fill the void left by the attorney, a position for which she is utterly unqualified. So I’ve been applying for jobs left and right – I think I’ve sent out like 15 resumes in the last week or so. And there’s school. My class was cancelled last week due to a construction accident and an exploding transformer (no word on whether it was a decepticon) – which was … Read entire article »

History has a tendency to repeat itself: An Ohio legislative panel yesterday rubber-stamped an unprecedented process that would allow sex offenders to be publicly identified and tracked even if they’ve never been charged with a crime…The rules spell out how the untried process would work. It would largely treat a person placed on the civil registry the same way a convicted sex offender is treated under Ohio’s so-called Megan’s Law. The person’s name, address, and photograph would be placed on a new Internet database and the person would be subjected to the same registration and community notification requirements and restrictions on where he could live. The article states that nobody in attendance voiced opposition to the proposal. Of course not – to do so would be to align yourself with child-molesters. … Read entire article »