An Economy You Can Bank On

Normally, my job is to conjure new hypotheses to explain puzzles in old data. But these days, the marketplace for ideas has a void in the application of the old ideas of supply and demand to the most recent data. So far, here's what I've found:

• New York Times article on today's marginal product of capital and substitute private (sic) providers of banking services. Further elaboration in a September blog entry.
• Recent stock market declines may be partly due to news about corporate earnings, but much (probably most) is a change in the market's willingness to own a given earnings stream. If your willingness has changed less (more), you should buy (sell).
• (Measured) Housing prices will fall further in many places.
• Calculation of the effect of Treasury investments in volatile bank stocks on the deadweight cost of taxes.