It’s rare that I find fault with the the Financial Times, and even more uncommon with Gillian Tett and Paul Davies, who are two of their most seasoned and insightful journalists. Nevertheless, they have bitten off more than they can chew in “Out of the shadows: How banking’s secret system broke down.” The piece isn’t […]
Read more...We’ve noted on this blog repeatedly that the Wall Street Journal does an erratic job of covering the credit markets, sometimes reporting stories as late as a full month after they have appeared either at Bloomberg or the Financial Times. And we’ve also repeatedly caught the Wall Street Journal putting a positive spin on news […]
Read more...Once again, another example of the Wall Street Journal basically printing a press release and calling it a story, as contrasted with the Financial Times, which did some real reporting. The object lesson today is the latest news on the SIV rescue plan, which has retreated from the limelight as the Treasury’s other brainchild, the […]
Read more...The quality of debate in America has become so debased that for the most part we have become desensitized to the use of ad hominem attacks. In logic and rhetoric, an ad hominem argument, which attempts to discredit the person mounting the criticism, is considered invalid, since the substance of the charge has not been […]
Read more...Does Ben Stein, who writes the more-or-less weekly “Everyone’s Business” column at the New York Times, have any pride of authorship? Stein’s articles have a cobbled-together quality, as if he agglomerated whatever was rattling around in his brain and called it a day when he got to his word count (I’ll concede he might have […]
Read more...Maybe it’s the Prozac after all. During the dot-com era, some blamed the ever-levitating market on Prozac. With 28 million prescription written annually, a meaningful proportion of the investing population was on anti-depressants. Perhaps the shift in collective mood was enough to blunt caution. Now I have no idea of the use of antidepressants is […]
Read more...Having made a few back-of-the-envelope calculations in this blog, and then having had readers jump on me, I know what fraught exercises they are. But at the same time, a lot of information is bandied about, and you can learn a lot by connecting the dots (although sometimes what you learn is that you didn’t […]
Read more...The story, “Support for SIV superfund grows,” in today’s Financial Times, is curious. Let’s give you the key bits and then go over why it’s odd: The plan for a $75bn superfund to buy assets from cash-strapped structured investment vehicles appears to be gaining support among sceptical institutions, amid concern that SIVs might start dumping […]
Read more...Before I raise your expectations unduly, I am not saying that Ben Stein’s entire “Everybody’s Business” column today is intelligent. However, this week’s piece, “It’s Time to Act Like Grown-Ups,” had some sensible moments, and I want to give Stein his due on those infrequent occasions when it is merited. I am not parsing the […]
Read more...It is scary what a slick and captivating piece of progaganda this is. Rather than try to hide the big reason not to join the National Guard, namely, that you will go to Iraq, this video instead glamorizes the war and links it (among other things) to the National Guard acting as militia in the […]
Read more...A story highlighted on the first page of the Wall Street Journal and slotted to appear on page A3, “Fidelity Succession Plan Weighs Splitting Chairman, CEO Posts,” has the earmarks of being a PR plant by the Boston-based company. And the Journal appears to have featured it as served up in return for getting the […]
Read more...I will confess to being cynical about the reporting in the Wall Street Journal. As we have noted repeatedly in the past, it generally goes overboard to stress the positive its market-related reporting. That says the reporters too often lack the time or savvy to go beyond their sources’ spin. Now Thursday was undeniably a […]
Read more...There is a very critical page one story in the Wall Street Journal, “Bear CEO’s Handling of Crisis Raises Issues,”wrapped in the veneer of balanced reporting, on Bear Stern’s chief James Cayne. Let me be clear about one thing: I am in no position to judge whether the charges made against Cayne are accurate. But […]
Read more...One of my pet peeves is lousy research, and even worse is lousy-with-intent pseudo-research. The airwaves are filled with fake factoids crowding out real information. I was once tempted to write a post on what it takes to do good survey research, simply because surveys are widely cited and most people probably mistakenly think they […]
Read more...I do not want to step on the turf of fellow blogger Felix Salmon, who has established a new feature, the Ben Stein Watch, to commemorate the generally deranged and uncomfortably close to stream-of-consciousness output of the Sunday New York Times columnist who styles himself as “lawyer, writer, actor and economist.” Well, at least he […]
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