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Author Archives: Erik Hare

Cat Talk

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Is there anything cuter than when your cat “talks” to you?  Cat people all love that cheery “Brrrup!” first thing in the morning (ideally after dawn) or the hearty “Ma-row!” when they first get home.  Or when the food dish is empty, depending on your li’l one’s personality.  What does it mean, exactly?  If you are a veterinarian or other expert on cats you’re probably pretty sure it means … nothing.  That’s right, cat people, just about any felinologist will tell you that your furry box dweller is simply meowing and chirping for no real reason at all.

I don’t believe it, either.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that the domestic feline has some limited vocabulary that means something, even if we aren’t smart enough to understand it.  I doubt they are planning to kill us or report back instructions to an invading army back on the cat planet, so perhaps I am a bit naïve after all.  But here’s what I’ve found.

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Banking (and Insurance) Should Be Boring

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Man Behind Desk:  “Mr. Brain, As you know, we here at Fiero & Company are re-re-insurers.    We provide insurance to re-insurers, who insure insurance companies.”
Brain:  “Is that lucrative?”
Man:  “Take a look.” (opens drawer)
Brain:  (big eyed smile) “Ahem!”
– Pinky and the Brain, S1E2, “Of Mice and Man”

One of the basic principles of Barataria is that “Banking should be boring”.  The main argument against financial regulation is that it stifles innovation.  Yet that hallmark of the 2000s has been the source of excessive risk and nearly all the trouble we find ourselves in today.  When banking is boring, the world is quiet and stable and those of us not in financial dealings have a decent chance of actually getting ahead.

The same is true of insurance.  That’s not only true as a matter of policy, it’s apparently true as a matter of making a lot of dough.

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Six Years On

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“The ideas of economists, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”
– John Maynard Keynes

Six years ago on Wednesday this humble blog was started.  It’s been here MWF ever since, without a single break.  Typically, the anniversary post is a chance to talk about where Barataria has been over the past so many years and brag up the stats a bit.  But that’s not all that important.  What is important is that this blog has covered a momentous time in the economy and life and general with a singular perspective – there are some really wild things going on that I don’t understand, but we can talk about them and maybe work out something together.  It turns out that this perspective is far closer to what the “experts” have experienced than we thought.  And it’s been one Hell of a ride to hang onto.

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Yes, Not Again – Again

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Ahead of both the 6th Anniversary of Barataria and my preparations for a book on the economy today, I have been re-reading old posts.  This one is from 26 March 2008, before the collapse of Lehman and before many people worried about the economy.  It’s important to revisit this point because it explains why many of us were worried back about the last time the DJIA was up where it is now.

This goes to the heart of what makes this a Depression, and why the effects are very long term and big.  I hope you enjoy this little trip through history.  Thanks for reading!

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Revisiting Job Dynamics

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While waiting for new information, it’s always good to go over the old stuff and see how we’ve done so far.  Barataria used to use the weekly unemployment initial claims as an instant guide to how the Depression has been running, but stopped a year ago.  The rationale at the time was that we were close to equilibrium at about 360k jobs lost every week.   There wasn’t much reason to expect a change.

How did that assumption fare?  And was this really proof, along with job growth leading GDP growth, that we are in an unusual economic event?  Let’s go back over some old ground and see how the old predictions went.   Some of this went well and some not so well.

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