February 2010 – Jason W Keith's Blog

February 16, 2010

The $555,000 Student-Loan Burden

The Wall Street Journal has a story about a Medical Student who now owes over $555,000 in student loan debt. Michelle Bisutti originally borrowed $250,000 to cover medical school, but her balance quickly ballooned as she deffered loan payments and defaulted during her residency.

While student loan debt of $500K is rare, balances of $100K+ are becoming more and more common.

February 14, 2010

Greg Mankiw Weighs in on the National Debt, Balanced Budgets, and the VAT

A few key points Mankiw makes:

Deficits ARE NOT necessarily bad. It makes sense for governments to borrow in certain instances.
Balanced Budgets are somewhat overrated.
Obama knows that his long-term plan is unsustainable.
The Value-Added Tax is an effective way for the government to collect additional tax revenue

Here is the full article in the NY Times.

February 12, 2010

The Importance of Signaling

Statistics students are aware of the bias that wording has on poll results. Here is an example of such an effect.

Note that majorities in both wordings support the right of gays to serve; the biggest difference is in the “strongly support” number.

Hat Tip to Marginal Revolution.

February 7, 2010

Never is a Long Time

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner stated in a recent ABC interview that the US is in no danger of losing its triple A credit rating despite its growing deficit.