Massive killer whale pod sighted BBC First black hole for light created on Earth New Scientist iPhone saves woman from bear Register Hardware (hat tip reader Michael) Gates pledges millions to African, Indian farming Raw Story (hat tip reader John D) US credit card defaults fall, but delinquencies up Reuters (hat tip DoctoRx) Goldman faces […]
Read more...A fascinating and somewhat disturbing article at the New York Review of Books by Jerome Groopman looks at what counts for progress in medical diagnosis and finds it to be more of a mixed bag than most readers would assume. This won’t come as much of a surprise to those who know a bit about […]
Read more...Ed Harrison has an excellent post over on his Credit Writedowns blog, following up and elaborating on his “Greed is Not Good” post here yesterday. To whet your appetite, here it the beginning of “More on greed, regulation, Lehman and the financial industry“: In one of my latest posts I said “greed is not good.” […]
Read more...By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. William K. Black – professor of economics and law, and the senior regulator during the S & L crisis – says that that the government’s entire strategy now – as during the S&L crisis – is to cover up how bad things are (“the entire strategy is to keep […]
Read more...From Marshall Auerback, a fund manager and investment analyst who writes for New Deal 2.0: As reported by Bloomberg: Goldman Sachs Group Inc., one of the first banks to receive cash injections from the U.S. Treasury during last year’s crisis, doesn’t have an implicit guarantee from the government, Chief Financial Officer David Viniar said today. […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. In the 1987 movie classic Wall Street, the sinister protagonist Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas gives this famous quote: In the last seven deals that I’ve been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of 12 billion dollars. Thank you. I […]
Read more...Modern man a wimp says anthropologist Dawn (hat tip DoctoRx) Arctic to be ‘ice-free in summer’ BBC Noise pollution threatens animals BBC Schools And Students React To Surge Of Homelessness Huffington Post. And the Dow broke 10,000 today…. Trading emotionally? Device warns of stress Reuters City bankers ‘regularly offer prostitutes to clients’ Guardian. I’m shocked, […]
Read more...I suppose one might classify the logic here as a tactical loss to secure a long-term gain, or in chess terms, sacrificing a pawn to take the queen. So get this: the Republicans (well, to be more accurate, House Minority Leader John Boehner, but we’ll treat him as a good proxy) are really really unhappy […]
Read more...By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. Everyone knows that the lobbyists for the financial giants are trying to kill any tough new regulations. But they are also trying to weaken existing regulations. Specifically, Robert Borosage notes: The [derivatives] bill that the House will consider on Wednesday creates a clearinghouse, not a publicly managed exchange. It […]
Read more...A fair bit of ink has been spilled on the idea that what is often called “innovation” in financial services is a fancy way of saying “extortion racket.” I was cheered when Paul Volcker put the ATM on his list of banking innovations and seemed unable to come up with anything worthwhile since then. Similarly, […]
Read more...Dean Baker, a couple of days ago at Huffington Post, called on readers to go to Chicago to participate in peaceful protests during the annual meetings of the American Bankers Association on October 25 to 27. A coalition of community, labor, and consumer groups are organizing this “Showdown in Chicago.” If you saw Michael Moore’s […]
Read more...This is starting to get interesting, although it is far from conclusive. Massachusetts Land Court judge Keith Long reaffirmed a 2009 ruling (Ibanez) that invalidated foreclosures on two properties because the lenders did not hold clear title to them at the time of the foreclosure sale. Now this decision is still subject to appeal, and […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. Earlier today I wrote a post featuring comments by Marc Faber as I like to do from time to time. In this particular case Dr. Faber was waxing prosaically about an eventual bankruptcy of the U.S. government. His money quote was: “Next station is when the U.S. government […]
Read more...By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. According to Bloomberg, the original draft of Barney Frank’s derivatives legislation: would have given the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission joint authority to “prohibit transactions in any swap” that they determine “would be detrimental to the stability of a financial market or of participants in […]
Read more...The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to “The Office” RibbonFarm King’s Harvest works to keep homeless people with their pets QC Times Computers Faster Only for 75 More Years Inside Science Fitch Sees 60% of Current RMBS Borrowers Underwater Housing Wire Blithe Blankfein Felix Salmon Goldman Sachs 2009 bonuses to double 2008’s; $23 billion […]
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