Yearly Archives: 2008

12/6/08 Antidote du Jour

12/5/08 Antidote du Jour

12/4/08 Antidote du Jour

Reader Notice

I am now en route to Vienna to do a day long private briefing/discussion with a small number of investors and business owners. This should be very interesting and mutually informative, since it looks like a very plugged-in group. Because this is a quick turnaround trip, and I need to deal with jet lag (aka […]

Links 12/3/08

Royal Shakespeare Company to stop using ‘distracting’ real skull in Hamlet Telegraph Mystery of crocs’ mass die-off BBC Metal prices fall further than during Great Depression Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Paulson Softening Stance on Foreclosure Relief Paul Jackson, Housing Wire Manhattan Awash in Open Office Space New York Times Oil Will Fall Further Without OPEC Action, Says […]

Martin Wolf Says Big Stimulus Programs by Big Debtor Countries Will End in Tears

One thing I have found troubling is the near-unanimity in the US that we must Do Something about the burgeoning economic crisis, and that Something is big time monetary and fiscal stimulus. Near unanimity is almost never a good thing in the political and policy realm, since conditions and options are sufficiently complicated so as […]

Paulson May Ask for the Remaining $350 Billion TARP Allotment

You have to hand it to Paulson. The man is brazen. Now, admittedly, he has not asked Congress for the second half of the $700 bailout funds; the Wall Street Journal says merely that he is considering making a request. Now let us consider; 1. Paulson got the bill passed (remember the timing: it was […]

Guest Post: Fed Transparency Watch

Sometimes guest blogger Lune sent us a piece on a post by Willem Buiter, “Stigma, Schmigma,” that I had included in Links last night. I had been tempted to comment on it, but events intervened, and Lune independently took up the mission. From Lune: Willem Buiter does a great takedown of the Fed’s policy of […]

Bill Gross Says Stocks May Not Be So Cheap

One of the arguments made by bottom-fishers is that not only are stocks “oversold” (a technical notion that reflects recent trading activity, such as trading volumes, price in relationship to various moving day averages) but are also cheap based on fundamental notions of value. We have been somewhat leery of any long-term valuation notions given […]

Real Estate Woes Increase Depth of China’s Slump

As the US, as the biggest creditor and exporter in the late 1920s was hardest hit by the Great Depression, China now looks to be taking the global slowdown on the chin. And in a further sign of distress, the Baltic Dry Index, a measure of contracting prices for dry cargo shipping (and seen as […]

Links 12/2/08

Swimming swans push up the cost of the 12 Days of Christmas Guardian. No deflation here. 2,700-year-old marijuana found in Chinese tomb TheStar The Great Crash of 2008 Robert Reich Schwarzenegger declares fiscal emergency in Calif. AP China Fears Restive Migrants As Jobs Disappear in Cities and Yuan’s Fall Watched Ahead of U.S.-China Summit Wall […]

So Do CDS Counterparties Post Collateral or Not?

I hate it when I get contradictory information from supposedly reliable sources, which happens upon occasion when the topic is CDS. The latest Institutional Risk Analytics newsletter is again after one of its favorite objects of ire, credit default swaps. One of its beefs is that the collateral posting rules are a joke. Key excerpts: […]

Mirabile Dictu! TARP Oversight Chief Dares Point Out the Obvious on the Paulson Non-Plans

To call Paulson response to the credit crisis improvised does a disservice to artists. Improvisation still requires a sense of direction and purpose, the thrust of a musical piece or the likely frictions between two characters. By contrast, the Treasury/Fed program looks completely reactive, an attempt to stabilize a system when they lack a good […]

Harvard, Other Big Endowments Selling Private Equity Stakes at Big Losses

A year ago, major endowments, like Yale, Harvard, and Princeton were seen as the ne plus ultra of sophisticated private investors, regularly posting 20%+ annual returns. Now they are dumping big chunks of their private equity holdings at distressed prices. What gives? The reason this is odd is that the last thing you want to […]

Paul Krugman Says Economy in "Steep Steep Decline"

A brief and grim interview with Paul Krugman on CNBC (hat tip reader Dwight). Some key points: The indicators are worse than any point during Japan’s contraction Spending is in free fall Unemployment could exceed 10%, meaningful employment recovery may not occur before 2011 Click here to view.