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Javanomics


My Boring Lectures


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Enjoy! -- Mike

Krugman on the US housing bubble

This is why you should not buy Real Estate.

Paul Krugman on the rich getting richer

Economic Literacy Site

Link to the Minneapolis Federal Reserve site.

Econ a Foriegn Language?

I was looking through various pages the fed has and found an old speech from June 1999 on Economic Literacy. I saw the following quote by Alice Rivlin and it made me wonder if this is how my students see my lectures. Those who have read do not have this problem but those that have not may!?

"Economic literacy is akin to having a working knowledge of a foreign language. If you are with a group of foreigners and don't speak their language at all, especially if its sounds and intonations are strange and unfamiliar to your ears, you tune out. You feel excluded, perhaps uneasy. If you have a rudimentary working knowledge of the language, you can at least follow the drift of the conversation, ask a few questions and feel that, even if you are not getting the fine points, you are not totally left out and you have a basis for acquiring more knowledge. That, it seems to me, is what economic literacy means—a rudimentary working knowledge of the concepts and language of economic activity and economic policy."

How much of rudimentary working knowledge do they have? Can I congratulate myself on discussing terminology and boring the heck out of my students before moving on to exciting debates?

Greenspan's Retirement

The legacy of Greenspan Housing Bubble

Professor on Credentialism

The Chinese Are Coming & Self Interest

Two stories on NPR Marketplace caught my attention: The first story was about the Chinese investing in the U.S. which reminds me of the Japanese in the 1980's buying Real Estate in U.S.
The Second story (commentary) is by Adam Hanft. He pointed out:

"People are positively jubilant about spending time and effort to create
videos or discover them, and then post them for free.But why? There's no
economic benefit to them. And that defies classic economic theory that says we
are all rational beings and act only in our own self-interest."

This will make an interesting discussion with the students.

MOney Video

This is from Dropping Knowledge. I will use this in class when I start teaching about money.
The Answer: Because it is a medium of exchange?

Why the Stock Market Moves by Navaro at UCI

A student asked me about the stock market and I did not have a good answer. I feared giving bad advice and him losing money and getting sued.
I am going to direct him to Peter Navaro's site and have him listen to the lectures.

need to look into this

I ran across this site for educators. I need to look at this site and decide if there is anything useful there or not.
Also a great site for the students is http://www.isbnspy.com/

Colbert Welcomes Henry Kissinger Back to the White House

The more we think that things are changing the more they are the same!

Start Of An Excellent Blog

Another excellent economist has decided to blog. I know that I will like MacroMind because he will ask questions that are relevant to our students. Also he is responsible for me being a dismal educator. He is responsible for my interest in economics as a subject, and he was one of the first people to encourage me to teach. Go toMacromind

John Kenneth Galbraith Quote

John Kenneth Galbraith is one of my favorite economists. I remembered that he had coined the term "conventional Wisdom" . Searching for the original quote I ran across the following quote of his "The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events."
You can see the above proven slowly but surely in the political news.