A look around at a few other blogs

It is that time again, time for a quick look around at a few other blogs that I monitor:

At the Marginal Revolution, George Mason's Tyler Cowan informs us of the very sad news that Nobel Prize Winner Gerard Debreu has died. Dr. Debreu will be most remember for his ground breaking work on equilibrium in markets and on utility theories.

Speaking of Nobel prize winners, over at the Becker-Posner blog, the discussion is on the tsunami. More precisely on catastrophic events that are unlikely but do occur. "The fact that a catastrophe is very unlikely to occur is not a rational justification for ignoring the risk of its occurrence." The reasons why these risks are often ignored are particular worthwhile!

Economist Brad DeLong shows once again that when he writes on finance or economics he is very interesting! In this piece he discusses the long run equity risk premium and the likelihood of stocks out performing other investments. He concludes that a recent Economist article based on the work of Dimson, Marsh, and Staunton is possibly too pessimistic. Readers of my blog (may remember D,M,&S's work from back in July. I agree with DeLong, but still maintain that DM&S hit the nail on the head when they bring up the point that equities will probably not return as much in the future as they have in the past.

KimSnider comments on a Baron's article which is about a paper by Bergstresser, Chalmers, and Tufano that struggles to find a reason for investors to buy mutual funds though a broker. While I disagree with Sniders' dislike of mutual funds as a whole, I totally agree with the her on her stance against buying load funds.

Marketweek (or should I say MARKETWEEK ;)) points out that China is "caught between a rock and a hard place" with respect to devaluing its currency. If I were in charge? I would let the yuan float. Probably in steps with a series of devaluations coming first, but I would like to think I would do something and do it soon. The sooner, the better. Prolonging it will only make it worse.

Which will be my cue to end this entry.