Archive for February, 2010

The $555,000 Student-Loan Burden

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

The Wall Street Journal has a story about a Medical Student who now owes over $555,000 in student loan debt.  Michelle Bisutti originally borrowed $250,000 to cover medical school, but her balance quickly ballooned as she deffered loan payments and defaulted during her residency.

While student loan debt of $500K is rare, balances of $100K+ are becoming more and more common.

Posted in Economics, Finance | 1 Comment »

Greg Mankiw Weighs in on the National Debt, Balanced Budgets, and the VAT

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

A few key points Mankiw makes:

  1. Deficits ARE NOT necessarily bad.  It makes sense for governments to borrow in certain instances.
  2. Balanced Budgets are somewhat overrated.
  3. Obama knows that his long-term plan is unsustainable.
  4. The Value-Added Tax is an effective way for the government to collect additional tax revenue

Here is the full article in the NY Times.

Posted in Economics, Political | 1 Comment »

The Importance of Signaling

Friday, February 12th, 2010

Statistics students are aware of the bias that wording has on poll results.  Here is an example of such an effect.

Note that majorities in both wordings support the right of gays to serve; the biggest difference is in the “strongly support” number.

Hat Tip to Marginal Revolution.

Posted in Economics, Political | Comments Off

Never is a Long Time

Sunday, February 7th, 2010

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner stated in a recent ABC interview that the US is in no danger of losing its triple A credit rating despite its growing deficit.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off