As foretold, Goldman tops the list. From the Financial Times (hat tip reader Dwight): AIG paid out $22.4bn of collateral related to credit default swaps, $27.1bn to help cancel swaps and another $43.7bn to satisfy the obligations of its securities lending operation. The payments were made between September 16 and the end of last year. […]
Read more...Submitted by Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge. “I don’t feel the sickness yet, but it’s in the post. That’s for sure. I’m in the junkie limbo at the moment. Too ill to sleep. Too tired to stay awake, but the sickness is on its way. Sweat, chills, nausea. Pain and craving. A need like nothing […]
Read more...Caravaggio was early ‘photographer’ BBC Pentagon plans blimp to spy from new heights Los Angeles Times. I was always fond of blimps, one of my great uncles headed manufacturing at Goodyear a long time ago. Now I will have to rethink blimps. Darn. New Type of Superconductivity Spotted Science Now Blame the Economists, Not Economics […]
Read more...The Jim Cramer chatter precipitated by his Daily Show appearance included some links to an infamous interview Cramer gave in 2007, where he discussed how he would, as a hedge fund manager, push the prices of stocks he was short down via the futures market. It was arguably a public admission of market manipulation. What […]
Read more...The kabuki continues. The story from the Washington Post on AIG bonuses would appear to represent a modest win for taxpayers: American International Group is doling out tens of million of dollars in bonuses this week to senior employees. While AIG agreed to pay the bonuses months before the government’s rescue of the company began, […]
Read more...Monkey ‘kills cruel owner with coconut thrown from tree’ Telegraph (hat tip reader Steve). Workers of the world, unite….. See You Later, Regulator Susan Lee, Forbes The great escape Peter Morici Asia Times (hat tip reader Crocodile Chuck). The occasional detail is off (his story of deregulation, for instance), but nevertheless has a lot of […]
Read more...Steve Waldman makes some bold claims in tonight’s post: In two recent Surowiecki posts (here and here), Surowiecki points out that during the banking crises of the early eighties and early nineties, banks were arguably as insolvent as our banks are today, but hey, with a little time and without any radical changes, everything turned […]
Read more...So much for Ken Lewis’ cheery prediction that Bank of America would be profitable in 2009, although Bank of America could always be the exception. McKinsey is generally considered to have the best financial services practice among the major consulting firms, and being overly gloomy does not endear one to clients. The profit forecast is […]
Read more...Why is it that the Daily Show is the only media outlet calling out CNBC on its, how shall we put it politely, less than stellar moments? I have to confess that Jon Stewart is much better than I realized (and I already had a high opinion of him, but I make a point of […]
Read more...Swiss Zoo Has One Too Many Hippos, So Little Farasi May Have to Go Wall Street Journal. The zoo in Birmingham, Alabama lost one of its two hippos last year. Maybe it has room. although their remaining hippo could be a male. Researchers find ways to sniff keystrokes from thin air ITWorld Bank of America’s […]
Read more...Ooh, the posturing is getting interesting. As we noted in Links last night, Timothy Geithner has already climbed down from his “currency manipulator” saber rattling by pressing the G-7 to deliver a much more China-friendly statement on what they’d like to see it do with the yuan (the original version urged letting it appreciate. the […]
Read more...Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. Ed Mendel of Capitol Weekly writes that public pension funds’ rosy forecasts pose problems: Pension funds have been hit hard by the stock market crash, losing about a third of their value in some cases, and there may be another problem. Before the crash, some financial experts […]
Read more...Ah, the mighty are fallen, or more accurately, falling. Fitch is generally the first to whack ratings (unless you count the feisty but not given sufficient credit newcomer, Egan Jones). Note this does not (yet) appear to affect Berkshire’s new muni bond guarantee business, since the insurance and reinsurance units kept their top ratings, albeit […]
Read more...The new meme from big embattled banks, starting with Citigroup’s leaked Pandit memo yesterday and Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis’ declaration that the bank will be profitable in 2009, is that things will be OK and all this talk of nationalization is unwarranted. I’ll reserve judgement till the fat lady sings. The record of […]
Read more...Amazon rainforest at risk of ecological ‘catastrophe’ Telegraph Poached skins matched to tigers BBC Belligerent chimp proves animals make plans Associated Press (hat tip reader John) A sinking feeling Economist (hat tip reader Steve L) To the victor go the spoils: who answers the phone in the US Treasury? Willem Buiter, In the middle, see […]
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