More than half of the young children in the U.S. now have access to an iPad, iPhone or similar touch-screen device. For parents, their children's love of these devices raises a lot of questions. Kids for years have sat too close to the television for too long or played hours of Madden on family room game players. But pediatric neuroscientists and researchers who have studied the effects of screen-time on children suggest the iPad is a different beast. IPads can be wonderful, but are they wonderful for toddlers? Ben Worthen on Lunch Break explains why pediatric neuroscientists and researchers suggest that the iPad differs from TV and video games. Photo: Darcy Padilla for The Wall Street Journal. A young child will look away from a ... Continue reading →

Call it the Glass-Steagall myth.Since JPMorgan Chase announced its surprise $2 billion, and growing, trading loss there have been renewed calls from economists, pundits and politicians to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, a Depression-era law that prevented commercial banks from participating in investment banking activities.Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Massachusetts, sent an e-mail to thousands of her constituents, pressing to bring back the law, which she said, “stopped investment banks from gambling away people’s life savings for decades — until Wall Street successfully lobbied to have it repealed in 1999.”A meme around Glass-Steagall has been created, repeated so often that it has almost become conventional wisdom: the repeal of Glass-Steagall led to the financial crisis of 2008. And, the thinking goes, has become ... Continue reading →

Alex Wong/Getty ImagesPaul Volcker, former Federal Reserve Board chairman, testified before Congress last week.At JPMorgan Chase, they called it “the icing” — as in the icing on the cake.The bank’s chief investment office — the one that incurred the $2 billion trading loss — was responsible for managing the firm’s risk.It was supposed to place trades, including by hedging, to keep the firm from losing money.But part of the group’s job may have been at odds with its stated goal of reducing risk: it was also supposed to turn its “hedging” trades into a tidy profit. That’s the part they called the icing.As investors, regulators and policy makers try to deconstruct the trading blunder at JPMorgan, it is worth revisiting the debate over the very ... Continue reading →

Nati Harnik/Associated PressWarren Buffett, right, and Charlie Munger at the Berkshire Hathaway meeting on Saturday.OMAHA — “When Charlie and I took this job, we did not agree to put our citizenship in a blind trust.”That’s what Warren Buffett said here over the weekend at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting when confronted by a shareholder question complaining that Mr. Buffett had become a public advocate for President Obama and the so-called Buffett Rule, which seeks to raise the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans — many of whom were in the audience.Mr. Buffett’s longtime business partner, Charlie Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire, quickly quipped that his partner’s position on taxes “has reduced my popularity around my country club.”It also appeared to reduce Mr. Buffett’s popularity among some ... Continue reading →