Yes, we will continue to repost this amazing picture.

According to a press release from the New York Fed, PrezBo has been “redesignated Chairman of the New York Fed Board of Directors.” This means he will remain as Chairman (the post he currently holds) on the board through 2012. PrezBo is no stranger to the New York Fed, having risen in the ranks from being appointed deputy chair in 2009 before being appointed chairman of the board in 2010.

PrezBo, known for his staunch support of bigger government and the first amendment, votes with the other board members of the Fed to influence monetary policy through setting discount rates and the appointment of the bank’s president. Still, the Wall Street Journal says “a big part of the role is symbolic.”

Bollinger’s been on the board since 2007, having served as a Class C director. Given that the board looks for “individuals chosen from professions outside the banking community and typically represent business, industry, agriculture, labor and consumers,” it’s clear that the man with a plan (and a full head of hair) was a natural fit.

Lawrence Summers, former Director of the U.S. Economic Council under Barack Obama, believes his policies are crucial for mending the woes of the world’s economic climate. Without the implementation of his plans, he believes that the risk of a global depression increases significantly. Lunchtime Thursday, he stopped by IAB’s penthouse for a discussion of fiscal stimulus and economic calamity. Bwog’s Chief Supply and Demand Correspondent Grant D’Avino was there to give you the scoop.

Pensive

At Thursday’s Gabriel Silver Memorial Lecture, Lawrence Summers laid out a vision of the economy similar to the one he held while serving as Director of President Obama’s National Economic Council. His firmly Keynesian explanation for the industrialized world’s economic woes were summed up in one sentence, “There is too little demand.”

With the world economy in what he called “a moment of singular danger,” Summers explained some of the central lessons of economics and teased out their implications for successful policy. “It is not true that what is good for one person is good for everyone,” he said, turning to a concise explanation of the paradox of thrift. The problem, he continued, is that what makes sense for one person—like saving money for the future—can result in economic disaster if everyone does it at the same time, given the right conditions. Summers followed with a point he has made before, “It is the central irony of financial crises that while they are caused by too much confidence, too much borrowing and lending, and too much spending, they can only be solved through more confidence, more borrowing and lending, and more spending.” The failure of many policy makers to recognize these issues, central tenets of Keynesian economics, has contributed substantially to the continued stagnation of the world’s industrialized economies, Summers alleged.

Read more…

Time is precious, money is scarce, and between pondering the The Other and following Kanye on Twitter, running mundane errands can end up feeling like the most stressful thing in the universe. Bwog wants to help ease your anxiety and make deciding things a tiny bit easier.

Question: Is using Mail Services cheaper than the Post Office (located on 112th next to Book Culture)?

Answer: NO!!!! As it turns out, a light padded envelope to a collegiate pal costs $6.90 at Columbia’s Mail Services and only $2.07 at Columbia University Post Office (unaffiliated, just nearby). Mail in Lerner is sent with FedEx which is why it is so much more expensive. FYI: both FedEx and USPS offer tracking.

Still, Package Center stories are priceless!

Nostalgia!

More budgeting woes and worries? E-mail tips@bwog.com for the answer to your frugal questions!

Bwog knew its networking sense was tingling. It’s that time of year again… the Engineering Consortium Career Fair! Students of CC/BC/GS, take note. This is how engineers get jobs: they dress in business formal and wait in lines.

Last night the University played host to yet another speculative overview of our recent financial woes – bringing Joseph Stiglitz, Gary Gensler, and Arthur Levitt into the spotlight once more. As the men mused about our reactions to financial crisis and what’s to come, Bwog’s Financial Regulation Bureau Chief Grant D’Avino was there reporting.

Domestically and internationally, calls for reform have resounded in the wake of worldwide financial crisis. The repercussions of the crisis are still being felt and yet to be completely understood. While banks, governments, regulators, and human nature have each taken a turn as the supposed cause of the crisis, Monday night’s panelists switched gears from blame to make clear that financial reform and regulation are the only way to prevent similar calamities in the future.

Gary Gensler, Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, who would later be described by co-panelist and former Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission Arthur Levitt as the “finest chairman of the most underfunded, under-supported agency in the history of America,” was the first to speak. He opened with a bit of useful historical context, noting that much maligned financial derivatives have existed in one form or another since the Civil War as instruments used to hedge risk. However, he stressed that the derivatives at the heart of the recent crisis, called over-the-counter derivatives, originated in the 1980’s. Gensler believes that well-regulated financial markets build confidence and credibility important to investors, maintaining a level playing field that is both fair and transparent. Read more…

Urban canines visiting Chelsea are mistaken for cross-dressing prostitutes. (NY Mag)

Trader Joe’s not so secretly joins the influx of grocery stores on the UWS. (Westside Independent)

Obama could make Columbia Professor Michael Woodford the new Donald Kohn. (Reuters)

Reagan’s face threatens Ulysses S. Grant’s. (LA Times)

Repression can lead to all kinds of problems. (UPI)

Control your mind with music. (Medill)

Latest addition to the list of rules no one used to care about, but you now cannot break because Columbia is broke: that coffee is for special people only!

An anonymous Computer Engineering student received this email yesterday. (EE stands for Electrical Engineering ; those students got this email via their listserv as well.)

Dear EE/CE students,

Many of you have been taking advantage of the free coffee in the EE kitchen, Room 1307 MUDD. Unfortunately, it has gotten to the point where we can no longer allow this. The area is intended for the use of the EE staff, faculty, and visitors. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Photo by Anish Bramhandkar

For all the statistics about Argentine economic achievement mentioned last evening, one might be surprised to learn that Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the current president of Argentina, is languishing in the polls.  Her approval rating slid nearly 30% in the four months after taking office and she has remained a controversial figure both domestically and internationally. 

Her husband, the last president, presided over a surge of economic growth following the 2001 collapse of the Argentine peso.  However, price controls and increasing taxation has led to rapid inflation (though official figures still state it at a mere 8%) and rising unemployment.  A 2008 tariff sparked a farmers’ revolt that ended the Kirchner honeymoon.  Accusations of corruption and cronyism have continued to plague her administration.

Despite its problems, Argentina is still much better off than it could have been, having weathered two economic collapses: one domestic and one global.  This is the message the embattled President sought to present at the World Leaders’ Forum.

During her meandering address, Kirchner tried to take the lessons learned during the Argentine recovery and apply them to the global financial crisis.  The “imbalances we have seen around the world,” she said, have led to uncertainty and volatility.”  For stabilization, we need “certainty – this element is key.”

As for how to achieve this economic certainty, Kirchner described her conversation with Joseph Stiglitz regarding the need for new international organizations to promote global economic and social development, especially in developing countries.  She did not specify the details of such organizations and simultaneously lambasted the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for pushing policies on developing countries that allegedly fueled the collapse.

Read more…

And we’re gonna let you finish, but…

New York City has some of the highest unemployment of all time. (NYT)

We’ve also got some of the lowest homicide rates of all time. (AP)

Columbia’s Joseph Massad has one of the most protested tenures of all time. (Manhattan Institute)

The new swine flu nasal spray is one of the speediest vaccinations of all time. (NYT)

Street food vendors have some of the scariest beef of all time. (Gothamist)

Columbia’s old Rembrandt is one of the most expensive paintings of all time. (TimesOnline)

Butler’s own James Franco wields one of the biggest flamethrowers of all time. (BestWeekEver)

Columbia’s own associate professor Rama Cont is featured in the most recent edition of City Journal discussing new ways of financial modeling and his unconventional view on the economic crisis. Although Bwog has a hard-ish time wrapping its head around the more specific econ bits, all you would-be i-bankers may find Cont, who conducts his research through SEAS, not the Econ department, to have an interesting perspective. Read the full article here.

 Image via city-journal.org

Bwog’s in the market for a daily editor or two for the new semester. The job: writing the various posts for your day, covering breaking news, and generally running the Bwog’s minute-to-minute operations. Perks include scaring administrators, advance free food knowledge, the chance to write witty headlines, and free extra emails.

If that strikes your fancy, send us the following:

1. A list of five (5) ideas for future posts and/or consistent features.

2. One (1) previous Bwog post you liked and why.

3. One (1) previous Bwog post you didn’t like and why.

4. A mock Bwog post on a topic of your choice, not to exceed three hundred (300) words.

5. Areas of Columbia life you’re interested in writing about (student government, city, arts, administration, sports, food, etc.)

Email these things to bwog@columbia.edu by Wednesday, September 16th at 11:59 PM. Email any questions to the same email address. Don’t fret, first years: we’re in fact especially looking for 2013s, so, if anything, your newness helps.  Happy applying!

In these economic times, we all want to add that extra line to the CV. President Bollinger’s version of this appears to be upping his profile slightly at the New York Federal Reserve, where today he was named as deputy chair of its board of directors.

Bollinger has been a member of the New York Fed board since 2007, and he will be serving under Denis Hughes, who is also president of the New York chapter of the AFL-CIO. Bollinger is also on the board of several other prestigious companies, including the Washington Post Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

As for the why, Wall Street Journal deputy editor David Wessel called the Hughes and Bollinger appointments an “image change” for the New York Fed on his Twitter feed. Perhaps it’s the dashing hair?

Photoshop credit to “D. Sion G.” 

In the most noticeable cost-cutting measure so far, Lerner Hall Operations Executive Director Honey Sue Fishman announced in an email to the student council presidents that, “given these extraordinary economic circumstances,” Lerner Hall hours will be reduced, and the computer lab and Cafe 212 seating will no longer be open all night.

“All departments and schools,” Fishman wrote, “have been asked to identify opportunities to reduce expenses and lower the overall budget. Our goal is to make reductions with the least impact to academic business, student life and the broader campus community. After careful review and consultation with elected student representatives, it has been determined that changing the operating hours and services of certain buildings will have a significant impact on efforts to contain costs across campus.” The changes:

• The Cafe 212 seating area, the Citibank ATM, and the Lerner Computer Lab, once open 24 hours a day, will now close overnight. Closing time will be at 1:00 a.m. Sunday-Wednesday, and 3:00 a.m. Thursday-Saturday, so most of your drunken late-night ATM visits will still be possible.
• The building will open one hour later in the morning (8:00 a.m.)
• The package center will open at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and will be closed on Saturdays.
  
• Lerner will only remain open 24-hours-a-day during reading week and final exam periods.

No other buildings were mentioned as being considered for reduced hours, but perhaps closing 403 for 6-12 months will finally get rid of that stench. Fishman’s email after the jump.

- JCD (photo: Samat Jain/Flickr) Read more…

A few days ago, we reported that the CVS on 96th Street and Amsterdam would be using Flex, partly at least because, according to Student Services, other neighborhood drugstores “have not responded to our invitations to join the program.” However, when Bwog checked in with Duane Reade’s manager, we learned that there may be hope yet for Flex at a closer drugstore. According to the manager, “Students have been coming in and telling me about Flex,” for awhile, and he “sent in the paper work about a year ago.” As for the paperwork going through, “apparently they’re going to be using a lot of Flex next semester so it’ll hopefully be ready by fall.”

In sadder retail news, JAS Mart at 110th and Broadway has shut its doors, according to a sign on said doors, and Morningside Books, after a temporary donor-induced respite, now has signs saying “We are ACTUALLY closed this time.”

- JCD, ECS, and JYH