Category: Money
-
Fannie and Freddie
The U.S. government takes over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The old CEOs are forced out. Of course, they took home multiple millions of dollars over the last few years, while they were engaging in risky behaviour which led to the government bailout. Are they going to have to give it back? Stay tuned. So…
-
eBay
I’m not a serious eBay user. I’ve bought four or five items on eBay over the years. I’ve never sold anything on it. I once did a sales presentation at eBay; they didn’t buy our software. I was surprised to read in the newspaper that eBay is making a deal with buy.com to sell stuff…
-
Canadian Book Prices
When I was young, U.S. books sold in Canada for the U.S. price, paid in Canadian dollars, and stores in tourist spots in Maine would take Canadian dollars as equivalent to U.S. dollars. Then the Canadian dollar started to sink against the U.S. dollar. Stores started putting up signs saying that they took the Canadian…
-
Oil Speculation
I’ve seen some arguments that the current spike in the price of oil is being driven by speculators. The general argument seems to be that people are betting that the price of oil will rise in the future, and are locking in prices now via futures contracts. They plan to sell those contracts in the…
-
Rent Control
My home city, Cambridge, Massachusetts, used to have rent control. It was generally supported in the city, but it was voted out in a statewide referendum in 1994. The statewide referendum was a bit of a crock; only three cities in the state had any form of rent control (Cambridge, Boston, and Brookline). Rent control,…