This seems important

How much do IQ tests at age 4 predict the outcomes of IQ tests later in life?  Not much, it turns out:

http://geniusblog.davidshenk.com/2010/02/the-myth-of-the-meritocracy.html

I wish I knew more.

Agony

is trying to get the wirelss music system to work without constant dropouts.

I feel like I am listening to a skipping 8-track.

It’s the spending, not the deficit

More or less why the magic stimulus is not so magic…with charts.

economix

A liquidity crisis, not a solvency crisis?

I am not sure (financial times link)

It was the collateral calls not the underlying values that killed AIG.  We aren’t going to know what really happened for a while.

A thoughtful essay

about economics.

Solow on Cassidy

Note where Professor Solow tells us the calculations are not done.  As an example: there is no clear and operational definition of ‘systemic risk’  yet.

I agree

Make some rules. Charge an insurance premium (or tax) for too big to fail financial institutions.  I would prefer that there were no too-big-to-fail financial institutions, though I suspect that’s impossible.

But don’t call the tax something like paying back TARP.  How many people will that fool?  Calling the tax TARP repayment may remind us that we used TARP to bail out GM and Chrysler.

Tom Cooley on the bank tax.

RIP Kate McGarrigle

One of my favorite records from that time:

Cheap Trick!

The tragedy of mathematical education

Here

You see the fruits of the problem when you teach students material that uses math to solve problems and express ideas. They freeze up and want recipes rather than seeing beneath the surface to the ideas.

But to be fair, some people only get the ideas by working through the recipes. I never understand anything until I work through all the steps myself, writing the recipe in my own words.

Sigh.

This seems like another alternative to a credit card option to me

Is This The Beginning of the End of Free Checking? – Real Time Economics – WSJ

You pay $20 per month to the bank for the checking account, but the account does not charge any overdraft fees for overdrafts up to $500.  And you get a debit card.

You therefore pay $20 per month for the ability to have a short term ‘interest-free’ loan of $500. 

That works out to an interest rate of 4% per month, or 1.04^12-1=60% yearly interest, in the best case.  And that is if you borrow the $500 each month.  Surely you can find a lower cost credit card? That is, get a no-fee credit card for those $500 short term loans.