A perfect piece for our course

What Nocera is describing is moral hazard in business practice and thus low expectations by consumers when the efficient solution would be no moral hazard and trust by consumers.

The Baby Formula Barometer - NYTimes.com via kwout

Creating the pre-conditions for trust

This is an interesting profile of a company called Airbnb.  They have achieved scale in what seems a cottage industry.  (Please pardon the pun.)   The issue for us is whether there are principles to distill from this example about how to generate trust and then sustain it.

Welcome to the ‘Sharing Economy’ - NYTimes.com via kwout

I hope our class can do a bit of this.

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought."
       -- Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

The Return of the Invisible Handshake?

Economic theory has long explained "collegiality" as a productive practice where employees do mutual favors for one another and where the employer is part of the equation as well - not reducing wages during a recession a prime example.  This piece kindled thoughts of the earlier economic works.  But it may have something new - that an individual can establish a culture of favors simply by already behaving as if that culture exists.

Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead? - NYTimes.com via kwout

Ethics and Income Distribution

This is an excellent column for showing differing views about the causes of increased income inequality and the good and bad of it.

If everything is as  in the model of perfect competition, then the shares of income that go to capital and labor are entirely market determined.  The notion that people in power either exercise restraint or self-indulge and capture more income for themselves requires some degree of market power to achieve.

Our Broken Social Contract - NYTimes.com via kwout

Transfer Prices for Tax Avoidance

We will talk about transfer prices in the course, but for other purposes than this.  Yet Apple has made the practice of using transfer prices to move the jurisdiction of where profits are earned a high art, one that has brought huge attention to the issue, so you should be aware of it.

Apple’s Tax Strategy Aims at Low-Tax States and Nations - NYTimes.com via kwout

For posts about scoring exams, blog posts, etc.

This item is different than announcements.  It pertains specifically to matters concerning grades.