Following are three responses Charles Ebinger posted to my questions during a Brookings Institute webchat on climate change, held on April 28th, 2010. Charles Ebinger specializes in international and domestic energy markets (oil, gas, coal and nuclear), the geopolitics of energy with a particular focus on the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. Ebinger has [...]

————— Also Eswar Prasad on The U.S.-China Economic Relationship: Shifts and Twists in the Balance of Power

Last night at NPR West in Culver City, I had the opportunity of speaking with Simon Johnson who in 2007-8 was Chief Economist for the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In part, the talk was to promote his new book, “13 Bankers, the Wall Street Takeover and the the Next Financial Meltdown,” and the event was [...]

How fun!  The WSJ has just posted a new community blog: “Which currency would you bet on over the next  year.”  The options listed are the dollar, the Euro, the Yen and Pound… I had to take a shot at it… AS: Betting on the dollar, euro, yen or pound?  All of the above.  Over [...]

Below is an excerpt from an exchange with David Carr on Facebook regarding a Guardian posting: “Striking Greece Fight Back Against Austerity Plan.” David pointed me to the New York Times article “Banks Bet Greece Default of Debt The Helped Hide,” where Philip Gisdakis, head of credit strategy at UniCredit in Munich said, “It’s like [...]

This is part 1 of a series that I am publicly working through.  The previous post introduces the why and how this exploration began and a general outline of where it looks to be going. 1. The 1946 Employment Act To start with, the Census Bureau falls under the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) and [...]

Throughout the last year and a half, like many of us, I’ve been casually following some progressive financial blogs waiting for an economic historian to look at this financial crisis and guide me towards a critical understanding of why we’re in the crisis that we are, and how we might come out of it. Mostly, [...]

Sunday morning in Hawaii, and it’s raining. Responding to J. Kehaulani’s request to post a summary remark on Facebook about the *book* I’m writing, I spent a good hour pulling together a summary draft of what will become a public presentation on the research that I’ve been working on, in part as a fulfillment of [...]

Tonight at the Hawaii Theater was the world premiere of the Barbarian Princess (recently changed to a more prudent Princess Kaiulani, perhaps because of the controversy surrounding the previous title which many have criticized since it’s theatrical release).  I went expecting to be disappointed, but I often forget that I like most films, and hence, [...]