From the perspective of the corporate profit and loss statement, a trading loss is one expense item in the context of all revenues and expenses. So $2 billion should be compared to the bank's $26.7 billion in pretax profits for 2011, suggesting a reduction of something less than 10 percent in annual profit.

The persistence of conceptual errors in Fed monetary policy is a central puzzle in monetary history particularly in light of the enormous costs of Fed failures during the Great Depression.

The headlines that the health care bill sponsored by Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus will cut the federal deficit by $81 billion over the next ten years are not worthy of belief.

The conceptual deficiencies of the fair value accounting theory make it a poor choice for most companies as an accounting standard.

AEI health care policy expert Thomas (Tom) Miller explains why current Medicare reform proposals are mostly "policy concepts devoid of structural details." Miller points out that even the Ryan-Wyden proposal which "makes an honest effort to start this process at the ‘high-concept’ level,” needs “a more detailed script that begins to answer at least 13 more questions."

The Laffer Curve—the conceptual device illustrating how high marginal tax rates reduced revenue and economic growth—helped revolutionize tax policy around the world thirty five years ago. Today we need a new Laffer Curve—for regulation.  

By keeping the focus on better health for real people, perhaps we’ll develop both the humility to recognize how little we still understand as well as the drive to ensure — and emphatically demand — that our advances ultimately wind up not only in papers, but also in patients.

Regime actually describes an entire system of government. And if the American regime is imperial only when Republicans are in power, then it's not a serious claim, it's just a convenient and partisan slander.