Do we have the capability to eliminate booms and busts in economic activity? The answer in my judgment is no, because there is no tool to change human nature. Too often people are prone to recurring bouts of optimism and pessimism.
March 13, 2014
“Do you have a Macy’s credit card?” asked the woman behind the counter. “No,” I replied shaking my head somewhat disdainfully side-to-side. “Who needs another credit card?” I thought. ‘Well, I ask because you can get another 20% off’ continued the woman. “Oh,” I said quietly to myself. “I’m getting 20% off because it’s on sale … and I can...
February 07, 2014
It was the end of a day as I sat in a local restaurant kvetching to a friend. Kvetching is Yiddish for complaining. I really love Yiddish because it often captures not only a word but the sound of feeling in the word. It’s spoken emotion. “It’s been a five-year secular bull market,” I kvetched. “So what’s the problem?” he asked. “...
December 05, 2013
The seven-year-old entered the building and walked through a dimly lit hallway. He stepped around the body of a drunken man passed out on the stone floor then knocked on the apartment’s steel door. The door was supposed to protect you from the outside world. The outside world was Charlestown and the apartment building was public...
November 11, 2013
As I came up out of the subway in New York City, I realized I was at the beginning of Wall Street. Looking up the street I was absolutely awed to see the lineup of limousines. In Boston at the time there were no limousines. There –on Wall Street- they seemingly were everywhere! To a poor Irish kid from Boston the cars, and their...
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