paulwilkinson.com

Rep. Gingrich: Text of Special Order on “Freedom’s Future: The Free World and the Soviet Empire”

Paul — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:00:30 +0000

Given the conversation among Elliott Abrams, @RichLowry, Jeffrey Lord, and others about the March 21, 1986, House special order speech by Rep. Newt Gingrich, I figured I’d read the speech. I posted it below and added paragraph numbers to facilitate discussion. His comments on the need to move from the “Rayburn” political model to a grassroots political [...]

Level the Playing Field: Business Securities and Investors vs. Mortgage Securities and Borrowers

Paul — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 08:01:26 +0000

It was nice last week to be included as a signer of a letter organized by Chris Whalento the Secretary of the Treasury, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Chairmen of the SEC, FDIC, Federal Reserve, and the Acting Director of the FHFA about improving the mortgage market. You can read the letter several places [...]

On the Other Side of Transparency Street

Paul — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:34:36 +0000

A brilliant classmate at Northwestern University on his way to medical school used to break into “On the Sunny Side of the Street” every once in a while. I don’t remember exactly why, but it’s a wonderful memory. And I’m not sure why that comes to mind now, but there’s probably a cognitive relation among [...]

Technology, Social Justice, and Making Things Better

Paul — Tue, 18 May 2010 14:44:01 +0000

UPDATE: CROP Walk web donations are closed but you can designate gifts (or make general donations) via the DonateNow or JustGive buttons on the RUMC home page. First, go to the Ramona United Methodist Church CROP Hunger Walk page. Donate a few dollars. A half dozen of the folks with whom I go to church [...]

My Fortune.com Piece: California Sunshine for Shadow Banking

Paul — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 14:23:21 +0000

New Fortune.com managing editor (and ’95 Medill grad) Daniel Roth (@danroth) gave me a chance the other day to write a guest column on transparency and financial recovery and XBRL. It’s now here. Thanks to another Fortune.com editor, I’m reminded of a lesson I learned myself at Medill (’86) about the value of good editing. [...]

Local Investing Can Build Global Markets

Paul — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 20:05:45 +0000

I’ve been the strongest possible advocate for global free trade ever since my Soviet Economic Institutions professor diverged from the syllabus to draw Ricardo’s theory on the board and prove unequivocally and concisely that it makes everyone better off. I still am. Dennis Santiago, however, makes strong arguments for local investing for California and Los [...]

Davos Mistakes about Securitization

Paul — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 07:34:06 +0000

I watched a C-SPAN replay tonight of a Jan. 29 panel at Davos in which five industry leaders pontificate about the future of the world. This was after tonight’s 60 Minutes lead report on the exclusive Davos gathering. The 60 Minutes report was as good as ever, but a failure of vision makes itself apparent [...]

My Davos Contribution: How Finance and XBRL Can Restart Sustainable Growth

Paul — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:53:26 +0000

BRUSSELS–As I’m enjoying outstanding Belgian cuisine with the family of a CLOUD, Inc. colleague after a day of meetings about how computer standards can improve the clarity and efficient use of information and provide for more accurate evaluation of the trust that one might place in information, a 500-mile drive south of here the world’s [...]

Commented on “A VC”

Paul — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:22:12 +0000

The Dragon App for the iPhone works pretty well too — it seems faster and almost as accurate as V10 of the full program on my PC, although as someone who was trained to write on a keyboard, I’m more comfortable typing — even though I think my writing may sometimes be better when it’s [...]

Economic Choice vs. Political Choice

Paul — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 06:09:18 +0000

Some choices are better made economically, with individuals able to decide for themselves how to maximize their own utility by allocating their own resources as they see fit. Other choices are better made politically, with groups deciding how to allocate their collective resources to maximize their collective utility. Other things being equal, it’s pretty obvious [...]

What if Some of this Waste Had Instead Gone to Passenger Intelligence IT?

Paul — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:43:18 +0000

We taped this story at the intelligence facility responsible for passenger manifest information. Given the focus of attention on the use of intelligence about passengers in recent days, the choice of location seems all too prescient. The reason we chose the location was to illustrate the point of the story: the homeland security budget process [...]

Words for 2010

Paul — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:17:34 +0000

If you’re not one of the 41,697 who have read this on Scribd or among those who have read it elsewhere, take a look. Among my favorites are facts, sleep, attention, and thnx. What Matters Now

XBRL, Journalism, Lawyering, Business, Charlie Hoffman, and the Semanitc Web

Paul — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:57:14 +0000

Charlie Hoffman just made the most enlightening post I’ve read in a long time. It’s no accident that the best journalism is the most direct: subject, verb, object. Similarly, clarity is essential to good lawyering and to the most successful business. I’m not sure, but wonder if perhaps part of the challenge facing the “Semantic [...]

XBRL Data Tagging Standards Advance on Two Fronts

Paul — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:33:12 +0000

Updated: 8:30 a.m., Tuesday, Dec. 15 Government Transparency Updates: The House approved S. 303 by voice vote on Monday, Dec. 14. The bill text and debate are immediately below; the debate starts on page H14837. An easier-to-read version of S. 303 is also below. The most important part of the bill, about data standard requirements, [...]

A Thought on Capital Market Power, Risk, Small Caps, and Large Caps

Paul — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:31:07 +0000

A few days ago I tweeted a question about whether a theory that less expensive stock trading contributed to fewer IPO’s holds water. The theory is that cheaper trading results in less revenue to fund analyst coverage of companies hoping to go public in the $50 million – $100 million range. In the 90s, a [...]