by Henry Oliner | Mar 25, 2020 | Business, Politics
Apparently, many people think buybacks are an inappropriate use of corporate funds and should be banned when receiving a bailout, which is part of the passed Covid Bill. I do not have a problem with that portion of the bill; buybacks are appropriate when you have no...
by Henry Oliner | Mar 23, 2020 | Politics
The Covid-19 virus has saved the planet. Nothing could have reduced our carbon footprint like docking all cruise ships, grounding a lot of airlines and reducing driving miles by massive quarantines and the new art of social distancing. The wildest dreams of the...
by Henry Oliner | Mar 17, 2020 | Politics
Risk= Hazard + Outrage Insurance actuaries have a good record of reducing hazard to a mathematical exercise that can accurately surmise the chances of you being in a car wreck or dying in the next 12 months; but they are far less able to predict 9/11 or the Covid-19...
by Henry Oliner | Mar 15, 2020 | Economics
I just read Devil Take the Hindmost- A History of Financial Speculation by Edward Chancellor and I am rereading The Forgotten Depression- 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself by James Grant. Speculative bubbles have been with us since the infancy of finance, we seem to...
by Henry Oliner | Mar 15, 2020 | Politics, Progressivism
Scientific reasoning as opposed to authoritarian faith has driven our enormous progress for the last few hundred years, but this reason has limits and its usefulness in the social realm has translated poorly. In economics our philosophical understanding of human...
