Marko’s Take Originally written May 31, 2010 Bond Ratings Agencies Yield Junky Results Think a certain credit rating means something? Think again! Amid the financial crisis which enveloped the global financial system in 2008-2009, Standard & Poors (S & P) and Moody’s played a central role. So much paper with sub-prime mortgages defaulted that were originally […]
Universal Basic Income Made Easy: Applied Markonomics101. One of the more controversial topics on various internet sites, and one threatening to go Full Mainstream, is a financial engineering plan commonly known as “Universal Basic Income” (UBI). While there are many hoped for “societal benefits” from the implementation of UBI, this analysis doesn’t consider them for […]
Can Anyone Win A “Trade War”? In the famous movie “War Of The Roses”, Danny DeVito plays a divorce attorney who imparts some incredibly insightful advice: “In a divorce there are NO WINNERS, just degrees of losing”. He might as well have been talking about Trade Wars. If you enjoyed and absorbed our piece yesterday […]
The tenets of Incentivism applied to the Student Loan Debt Problem
Incentivism is a type of economic system whose philosophy emphasizes the use of financial reward rather than punishment to alter an individual’s personal self-interest to make it consistent with that of society. An Introduction to Incentivism – Part 3: Government Intervention An ongoing bi-monthly series February 5, 2018 If you wish to either catch up or […]
Incentivism is a type of economic system whose philosophy employs the use of financial reward as a way to substantially augment and/or replace punishment to more closely align an individual’s self-interest with that of society. (You can access the debut issue “An Introduction to Incentivism” here) From Issue 1…. “What if Politicians’ reward system was […]
The first issue in a bi-monthly series: January 5th, 2018 Incentivism is a type of economic system whose philosophy or doctrine emphasizes the use of financial reward (Incentives) rather than punishment (Jail) to affect how individuals behave. While in the same category as communism, capitalism or socialism, Incentivism is a vastly different belief system. […]
Quick: If you take out a $1000 loan that has a 20% rate, how much will you owe a year in interest? Answer: $200. But if you got that wrong, you’re not alone. Nearly two thirds of Americans can’t calculate interest payments correctly, according to a new study. About a third said they didn’t even […]
Recently, a rather sizable number of high profile mega-billionaires announced an intention to donate most of their net worths to charity. Very commendable. Or was it? More than 30 U.S billionaires have pledged to give at least half of their fortunes to charity as part of a campaign spearheaded by Warren Buffett, the investor, and Bill Gates, the […]
Now let me get this straight. Goldman Sachs (GS), aka “Government Sachs”, has just received the largest penalty ever imposed on a financial firm. Yes, a whopping $550 million. Relative to Goldman’s 2009 net income of roughly $12 billion, this represents less than 5%, or about two weeks worth of earnings. In the case of British […]
