African bloggers, financial literacy, global regulation, securitization software, car prices, and Geithner.

African bloggers have a conference. Let's hear it for continued development in Africa! May it become quicker and more widespread.

A journalist asks Felix Salmon about the importance of financial literacy. It's probably not really important for most people, says Salmon. That may be true to an extent, but I think it may be important for people to be financially literate enough to know what our government is doing to try to fix the current situation, and whether or not it's a good fix. After all, with so many commentators on current issues, shouldn't people have an idea of how their elected officials are really doing?

I have great respect for Dani Rodrik. Sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I don't, but he always makes me think. This is a thought on global financial regulation.

One of the guys who wrote some of the software turning mortgages into bonds talks about whether or not that was a good idea. I think it's a good read. He points out that securitization isn't a bad thing if it's done well.

You think housing prices are down? Well, car prices are down too! But, that's not really new.

Geithner's job performance numbers are split. The man's got a tough job! I think that it's too early to make a call on his job performance, but I'm still glad we've got such a highly qualified guy in charge at the Department of the Treasury. He was one of the favorites to get the job originally for a good reason, I think.

Family planning, the bottom, help for Geithner, protectionism, and defaults

As history has clearly shown a number of times, economics affects family planning.

A few pieces from Calculated Risk. Orders for durable goods rose in February. Truck tonnage also rose in February. The bottom of the recession may have arrived! Not that it necessarily matters much, anyways. We'll feel the effects of the recession for quite some time.

Thankfully, Geithner may be getting some help, soon. Helen Garrett has been nominated for the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, Michael Barr for Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions, and George Madison for General Counsel.

Yet another piece warning against protectionist policies, ahead of the G20 summit. I hope the world leaders get the idea.

Credit card and school loan default rates are on the rise.

Local stuff: UTMB, HOT lanes, and employment numbers

UT-Medical Branch is re-hiring 500 workers, showing the role of expectations and high risk. Due to the risks at the time, UTMB had to lay off the workers, but now the risk has apparently passed.

Houston might be converting many of its HOV lanes to HOT lanes. You can still drive on the lanes for free if you have a passenger, but you can now pay a toll to drive on the lane if you don't. Sounds good for economic efficiency, though I always figured the point of the lanes were to encourage people to carpool, save gas, and produce less smog. I guess we're less concerned about that, now.

Relatively speaking, Houston had pretty decent employment numbers in January.

Newspapers, teaching, multilateralism, data, and the Geithner plan

There has been a bill introduced to allow newspapers file as nonprofit organizations. You know public television? Public radio? Try public newspapers. The Tax Foundation says that this may mean the end of editorials, but I don't see that happening. Public television and radio often have commentaries by people that express their opinions, so editorials may take a different form.

A community college professor gives some thoughts on teaching basic economics. Her article is well worth the read, I think. When I try to explain the concepts they're supposed to be learning, I worry that the students are sometimes missing the point, so I think this might be a good way to try to drive the essentials home.

FT provides an article on the importance of economic and political multilateralism. I think most economists see things this way as well, which makes me wonder about the economic education of political "realists."

Mark Thoma tells us that economists need better (and faster) economic data. if people expect us to have better forecasts. I suppose it makes sense to have better data as technology gets better, right? In a somewhat related post, Steve Horwitz points out that importance of looking at the right data.

And, a NYT debate on the Geithner plan. Follow along to see thoughts by Brad DeLong, Simon Johnson, Paul Krugman, and Mark Thoma. It's certainly an interesting read.

Macro stuff

Here's a fun new tool from the Federal Reserve. It's a dynamic map that will show you a variety of national data. You can compare states, MSAs, and more.

George Waters of Illinois State talks about the current state of macroeconomics, and how we view the current recession. (link to Thoma) I think many are becoming increasingly disenchanted with macroeconomic models, and I think that includes many macroeconomists. On a recent radio interview (I believe it was on NPR), an economist described what forcasters are doing right now as guesses. In general, they try to use past similar situations to estimate what will happen, but there aren't many past situations similar to today. Surely, if it were easy, everyone would be macroeconomists.

Over at voxeu.org, Philip Lane reminds macroeconomists not to forgot global issues. Domestic fixes to the crisis that don't take into account global imbalances may just lead to another crisis. I'm less paranoid than Lane, I think, but global imbalances are always important to consider.

Minimum wages, corn subsidies, wealth and GDP, health care, and chocolate

Here's a look at the effect of increasing the minimum wage... as many would expect, there's a fair amount of job loss, and mostly among the young.

The Business Pundit says that we should stop bailing out corn. Ah, to dream...

NYT reports that household wealth has fallen by trillions of dollars. To this, I'd like to emphasize two things. First, that household wealth was inflated beforehand, anyways. Secondly, that this has little to no direct effect on GDP, since GDP is "the market value of all final goods and services produced within an economy in a given period of time" (from Mankiw's textbook). That is, the 2009 GDP does not take into account changes of market values of things produced in other periods of time, by definition. The fall in household prices just means that houses were bad investments.

Professor Reinhardt explains the bit of stimulus money that goes to comparative effectiveness analysis in health care. There is no subversive plot.

A tax on chocolate in England? Oh no! Though, I'd imagine that the demand for chocolate is probably highly elastic, meaning the burden of the tax would fall primarily on suppliers. I can't imagine cacao bean farmers are wealthy enough to take such a hit to production, but I guess it depends on the size of the tax.

Posting may be spotty next week.

Technology, the Fed, the global recession, hiring, and trade

Lynne Kiesling has some interesting posts on smart grid technology. I'm looking forward to this stuff in the future.

Ben Bernanke says that he is glad to work at the Federal Reserve. "Economics is only useful to the extent that it helps people..."--very true.

Academic hiring is down, unsurprisingly. People tend to think lawyers can still make money, but apparently law firms are laying off lawyers, too.

U.S. trade deregulation provided for around 25% of trade growth. Seem obvious? Well, maybe not to people who are advocating protectionist policies.

Global Recession Status map. On the other hand, Chavez says that the global recession has not affected Venezuela.

Christina Romer's Lessons from the Great Depression.

Another thought on the unit-root-vs-trend-stationary Krugram-Mankiw debate, this time from David Altig at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

Research on the question: Does Money Bring Happiness? Some research says yes!

James Kwak provides Nationalization for Beginners.

Dani Rodrik on the problem with economists. He says we need to use multiple models, not just the one we believe.

Geithner starts to get some help. Geithner has been scrambling to get stuff done.

The IMF reports the costs of the financial crisis.