Round Up #23

Aphorisms/Shorts

And lo, he realized that it as his life-long self-deprecation, taught to him from a child of the (an?) underclass that made him think his voice should be valued lower than his links.  Now, he consciously changes that.  I mean I.  I choose to change that.

These Americans trading liberty for convenience don't realize that if they keep it up they'll soon have neither.  (Thanks, Benny)

[Academic economists influenced policy under a false sense of scientific certainty and thus] "subsumed the interests of Americans as producers to the interests of Americans as consumers, trading well-paid jobs for low-cost electronics."  Binyamin Appelbaum, quoted here.

Links

I went back to Koning's work on "moneyness".  I read several pieces that show he thinks liquidity is the solution to many puzzles in modern finance.

• The Bond Stock Conundrum
• Why (Not) Rent Your Home
• Liquidity Everywhere
• Beware CAPE. . . 
• Why are Gold and Bonds Rising Together?

Information technology does make this the golden age of financial liquidity, but I think 1) IT is a vulnerable system that grows more fragile over time 2) IT is probably ecologically unsustainable 3) the distortions are bigger in scope than what liquidity accounts for.  Still, I think the liquidity vector has to be thought about in order to have a reasonably well calibrated "10,000 foot" view of economics.

New subject. The guide to Corporate Democrat Speak.

Highly recommended sequence on Immoral Mazes. . . Introduction.