Comments on: Arbitrage

By: Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:25:08 +0000

interest rates on credit cards are pretty high as well.

Why would he get married when he was a student?

By: ken nielsen

ken nielsen — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:36:12 +0000

Jason, Chris Patten wrote (about the job of chancellor of Oxford) that a former politician watching academics was like a herbivore watching the carnivores.

By: Jason Soon

Jason Soon — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:45:13 +0000

Niall Ferguson has a little spat going with Paul Krugman

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article6806419.ece

One of them is a “poseur”. The other is “patronising”. One suffers from “verbal diarrhoea”. The other is a “whiner”.

A bust-up on the set of High School Musical 4 perhaps? A scrap behind the catwalk at a Milan fashion show? No. Those accusations were slung round in an increasingly bitter public row between two of the world’s most distinguished commentators on global finance and economics, professors Paul Krugman and Niall Ferguson, of Princeton and Harvard, respectively.

It started as an argument about bond prices. But last week it blew up into a row about racism, printing money, spending our way out of recession, and the fate of the global economy.

Academic spats can, of course, be famously catty. Ludwig Wittgenstein once tossed a poker at his fellow philosopher Karl Popper at a meeting of the Cambridge Moral Science Club as they argued about whether issues in philosophy were real or just linguistic puzzles. At least Krugman and Ferguson haven’t come to blows yet, although at their next meeting it might be better to hide the blunt instruments. Still, it is a long time since the academic world witnessed a dispute as gladiatorial as this one.

By: Yobbo

Yobbo — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:11:03 +0000

While not encouraging this sort of thing, that is very smart and gets around the punitive rates that banks charge on cash advances.

I don’t really think it’s that smart since the pawn shop will never give anywhere close to the retail price of the ring. If they did they would go out of business pretty quick. They usually pay by weight of gold and gem only.

In effect he probably got 50% of what he paid on his credit card. He would have been much smarter to simply pay the cash advance fee.

By: Abu Chowdah

Abu Chowdah — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:38:10 +0000

An intellectual challenge for you, methinks.

By: rog

rog — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:19:14 +0000

There is no fatwa on Ayaan Hirsi Ali

She would be a challenge for most guys.

By: Abu Chowdah

Abu Chowdah — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:06:54 +0000

Ayaan is no longer available?

My fantasy burst by a rogue prick.