Summer break?

"Joe, you may not remember this, but in the late 1980s, I once enjoyed the privilege of being in the office next to yours for a semester. We young economists all looked up to you in awe. One of my favorite stories from that era is a lunch with you and our former colleague, Carl Shapiro, at which the two of you started discussing whether Paul Volcker merited your vote for a tenured appointment at Princeton. At one point, you turned to me and said, "Ken, you used to work for Volcker at the Fed. Tell me, is he really smart?" I responded something to the effect of "Well, he was arguably the greatest Federal Reserve Chairman of the twentieth century" To which you replied, "But is he smart like us?" I wasn't sure how to take it, since you were looking across at Carl, not me, when you said it." Kenneth Rogoff sends an open letter to Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist at the Worldbank and author of Globalization and Its Discontents. Insight, via Lance Knobel.

New in the Interest-O-Rama: The Globalist. Next step in personal vertical media consumption behaviour. Like the name also.

Six weeks ago the United Future Organization split up. Gratitude, for many great moments enriched by their music. Nine years ago, the following track was released:

Artist: United Future Organization Track: The Sixth Sense

"We will use the full weight of the law to expose and root out misdeeds,' the President said during a speech on Wall Street. 'My administration will do everything in its power to end the days of cooking the books, shading the truth, and breaking the law, unless it occurred the same year the Cincinnati Reds won the World Series.'" Here, on Satirewire. Also: "Proving the Federal Reserve is anything but reserved, U.S. central bank governors this week announced they had dropped interest rates, their pants, and 162 tabs of acid and Ecstasy during what turned out to be a two-day 'policy rave' that ended Thursday."