Last Sunday, we made this observation about the SIV rescue plan, the so-called Master Liquidity Enhancement Conduit (MLEC), sponsored by Citigroup, JP Morgan, and Bank of America: Yesterday, we voiced doubts that this program could get done. Now that we understand that the primary goals is legerdemain, we think that it is likely that some […]
Read more...An excellent post, courtesy Mark Thoma at Economist’s View, from FactCheck.org, on why its efforts to correct the record are too often counterproductive. In essence, if ideas are falsely linked (say “Saddam Hussein” and “Al Queda”), further discussion preserves the false association. The entire post is very much worth reading; it’s a primer on how […]
Read more...It’s impossible to tell if this is an isolated event or the beginning of a trend, but a page one story in the Wall Street Journal today, “How London Created a Snarl In Global Markets,” labors to paint SIVs as a UK problem. The difficulty with this spin is that anyone with an operating brain […]
Read more...Apologies for having two Financial Times items in succession, but the FT all too frequently has the goods. In a new item that so far had not been picked up by the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times reports that a survey by the National Association of Directors found that two thirds of CEOs said […]
Read more...I must confess I don’t read the Economist as much as I used to. I suppose one factor was my belated recognition of how much to the right it had moved (it was evident to UK readers in the 1990s, but not being a close follower of British politics, I didn’t recognize it until the […]
Read more...“SOS to the SEC,” from the New York Post: Did Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke give away any secrets to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson when the two had an hour-long lunch on Aug. 16? And did Paulson share what he and Bernanke discussed with anyone in the hours immediately after that lunch?Those are two key […]
Read more...After denying the existence of rising disparities in income and wealth on it editorial pages, the Wall Street tells us that income inequality is indeed on the rise. It’s a refreshing change from January, when the Journal misrepresented a speech by New York Fed President Timothy Geithner in which he said that the growing concentration […]
Read more...The problem with being public is that your dirty underwear gets exposed, and if you are an investment bank, that means you have to talk about embarrassing losses. Morgan Stanley announced that it lost $390 million in a single day in August. And of course, it was those pesky quant traders. And even worse, Morgan […]
Read more...The Journal has redeemed itself a bit with a page one story, “The United States of Subprime.,” in which it seeks to understand what type of people would up as subprime borrowers. A caveat: I’m always leery of judging the quality of analytical work if I haven’t looked at the underlying methodology. One issue confounding […]
Read more...The Journal is breathtaking in its propensity to sell stories past their sell-by date as news. The latest example is an article, “Pricing Tactics of Hedge Funds Under Spotlight,” that will appear in the Tuesday “Heard on the Street.” Here’s the opening paragraph: New academic research suggests that some hedge-fund managers may cherry-pick flattering prices […]
Read more...The normally cheerleading Wall Street Journal, contrary to its usual form, voices considerable doubts about the near-200-point runup in the Dow yesterday: Stocks soared to a new all-time high….suggesting that investors already are shrugging off the problems that rocked global financial markets only weeks ago….. The scamper to new highs comes despite surging mortgage defaults, […]
Read more...A few days ago, we said we were willing to eat a bit of crow. Even though we had acknowledged some time ago that Bear might not survive the subprime mess as an independent firm, we also thought that no one with any sense would take a strategic position (taking a speculative bet is an […]
Read more...I am currently in Bailey Island, Maine. For those who know Maine, it is in Casco Bay near Brusnwick. Functionally, it is quite remote from urban America. The local economy is based on tourism, an airbase due to be closed in 2011, and fishing, particularly lobster fishing. So it made my day to find copies […]
Read more...If one didn’t know better, it might be possible to think that a page one story today, “Too Much Hope May Be Pinned On Rate Cut.,” was a decent piece of journalism. But to reach that conclusion, you need to overlook a few things. First, the story is late. Those who were early to recognize […]
Read more...Alan Greenspan made the mistake of resorting to a tired and increasingly ineffective move from the Bush playbook. Specifically, tell a big lie long and loudly enough, and quite a few people will come to believe you. But in Greenspan’s case, this tactic may be backfiring. Greenspan seems to have forgotten that some of the […]
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