The Dow traded up over 1% today, and if you believe the prevailing interpretation (assigning motives to market moves is always a fraught business), the cause was Nouriel Roubini, this era’s Dr. Doom, saying the recession was over. Roubini issued a statement that took issue with how the media (certainly Bloomberg) trumpeted his remarks. If […]
Read more...Indian tiger park ‘has no tigers’ BBC Hard Times Are Jamming the Ashrams New York Times Australia: British backpacker Jamie Neale silent as questions about his ordeal grow Telegraph. If you are not from downunder, rent Japanese Story, which is an excellent movie, and you’ll get an idea as to why this is a big […]
Read more...Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. The Independent reports that CalPERS is now suing rating agencies over $1 billion losses: Calpers, the California state employees’ pension fund and one of the most powerful fund managers in the US, is suing the three main credit rating agencies, saying they were negligent when they gave […]
Read more...The very fact an op-ed piece (more accurately, comment, as they call them in the Financial Times) by Paul Boyle against airbrushed accounting needed to be written at all is troubling. A move is afoot that appears further advanced than I realized is to fool with financial firm statements so as to reduce the procyclical […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal has quite a bombshell, namely, that the Fed and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have ordered the Bank of America to make changes to its board and clean up its risk and liquidity management. The bank is under the shortest of regulatory short leashes, a memorandum of understanding, […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. I got a tip from a friend Andrew about a sale of assets by Wells Fargo (WFC) which raises a number of interesting questions. He sent me the following 14 July article from the Milwaukee Business Journal. Wells Fargo sold $600 million in mostly non-performing subprime loans to […]
Read more...Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. The Associated Press reports that the funding shortfall faced by the UK’s defined benefit pension schemes broke back through the £200 billion barrier during June: The deficit of the 7,400 defined benefit schemes, including final salary pensions, widened to £200.1 billion during the month, after dipping below […]
Read more...Australia seeks new army robots BBC Shaken Baby Baloney Independent Accountant Managers doomed to repeat the mistakes of history John Kay, Financial Times. On the perils of running companies by the numbers, with McNamara and the Whiz Kids as object lessons. How long will China finance America? Robert Peston Calpers Sues Over Ratings of Securities […]
Read more...In an about-face, the Administration seems to be getting serous about trying to Do Something about the too-big-to-fail syndrome. Or is it? The proposal comes from Shiela Bair, and does not have the support of the Treasury Department. Curiously, Bloomberg reports that Bernanke has endorsed the Bair plan, which unusually puts him in opposition with […]
Read more...The first time I every heard of value added taxes was in the early 1970s, and all the stuff I saw then said the VAT was a bad tax, you raised as much from a sales tax with far lower administrative costs. The economic and policy literature was as one-sided as I have ever seen […]
Read more...Rob Parenteau, CFA, is sole proprietor of MacroStrategy Edge, editor of the Richebacher Letter, and a research associate with the Levy Economics Institute. At a Brookings Institution session last March, while Bear Stearns was flaming out, Robert Rubin asserted “few, if any people anticipated the sort of meltdown that we are seeing in credit markets […]
Read more...The NYT reports that President Obama’s chief auto adviser, Steven Rattner, has stepped down: Steven Rattner is quitting his post as President Obama’s chief adviser on the troubled automobile industry at a time when an investigation into his former Wall Street firm’s role in a scandal involving public pension funds has intensified. Mr. Rattner, who […]
Read more...Sound effect: how cats exploit the human need to nurture Guardian Sudden deaths of girl, 6, and GP raise fears over swine flu Times Online. Everyone is very nervous re swine flu, so this may be a false positive. The Next Hacking Frontier: Your Brain? Wired Molecule’s constant efforts keep our memories intact ScienceBlogs How […]
Read more...Nicholas Nassim Taleb and Mark Spitznagel have a provocative comment up at the Financial Time today, In some ways, it is isn’t surprising for those familiar with his work on risk and uncertainty. On the other hand, it is an eye opener to see what an internally consistent, reasonably comprehensive solution to our mess looks […]
Read more...Wellie, we get a bit of cheery news of sorts to take the edge off the sting that Goldman, presumably alive today thanks to the many ministrations of the government, ultimately borne by chumps like you and me, is off again looting making money hand over fist. It appears that quite a lot of Goldman […]
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