Andrew Dittmer, who was an important collaborator on ECONNED, sent me pdfs of the notorious Citigroup Plutonomy reports for leisure reading. Michael Moore highlighted these two research reports (2005 and 2006) in Capitalism: A Love Story . On the one hand, the authors, Ajay Kapur, Niall Macleod, and Narendra Singh get some credit for addressing […]
Read more...This is a bit O/T for the blog, but Matt Taibbi is in full flamethrowing rant mode, always an impressive sight (will “you’ve been vampire squidded” eventually enter the lexicon?) And the target is plenty deserving. Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, has attempted to defend the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now current Pope, […]
Read more...I don’t mean to beat up on Spencer at Angry Bear, who has provided an interesting set of comparisons on the perennial question of many investors, “Whither the stock market?” But one section of his discussion, precisely because it is such conventional thinking, is an illustration of how the blind pursuit of “maximizing shareholder value” […]
Read more...I had not pointed to the letter written by Matthew Lee, the so-called Lehman whistle blower, because it seemed to add little to the main story: insider alerts senior management to a Big Problem (or in Lehman’s case, that its chicanery/incompetence was so pervasive as to be impossible for anyone within hailing distance of it […]
Read more...From the December 2009 issue of The Baffler (no online version of this article available). For those not familiar with The Baffler, this is the revival of a magazine of business and culture edited by Thomas Frank that had previously been published from 1988 to 2007. This issue was called “Margin Call” and included articles […]
Read more...In case you somehow harbored the notion that the other half doesn’t live differently than the rest of us, an eye-opening report released by the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, “Lifting as We Climb,” analyzes a topic that too often gets short shrift, the net worth, or “wealth” of the lower economic strata. The […]
Read more...I’ve seldom seen so much rubbish written by people who ought to know better in a single day. Many critical thinkers have heaped the scorn and incredulity on three articles, one a piece on Rahm Emanuel slotted to run in the Sunday New York Times Magazine, another an artfully packed laudatory piece on Timothy Geithner […]
Read more...By John Ryskamp, an attorney and author of The Eminent Domain Revolt Why, in their article on Latvia’s austerity budget, are Marshall Auerback and Robert Parenteau giving Latvia credit for warm, fuzzy feelings? Especially in the context of Draconian cuts? It’s because Auerback and Parenteau don’t know what they want—their emotions are not grounded in […]
Read more...From the Independent: Chief executives from the world’s banks discussed the plans at a secret dinner held at Claridge’s, the London hotel, last October, at which several leading British bankers are said to have suggested that the sector should take greater responsibility for its part in the crash, and do more to reduce the vast […]
Read more...I imagine that many readers will react as I did to the Washington Post story, “In China, Wal-Mart presses suppliers on labor, environmental standards” (hat tip reader Paul S): that this story, yet another tidbit supporting the Bentonville giant’s supposed conversion to the true green camp, has to make sense on a cold-blooded P&L basis, […]
Read more...Consider: if we are starting to see signs of resistance to austerity measures in the US, it would suggest that they are not going to go over too well in other countries that have debt overhangs either. Defaults and/or restructurings are usually more palatable, politically. And before suggesting that bondholders won’t stand for it, guess […]
Read more...The financial press has for the most part looked at the possibility of sovereign debt crises in Greece, Spain, and Portugal through a deal-making window: will Germany and other EU surplus countries back a rescue package, and if so, with what strings attached? There has certainly been ample speculation, particularly since a bailout of Greece […]
Read more...Martin Wolf, the Financial Times’ highly respected chief economics commentor, weighs in with a pretty pessimistic piece tonight. This makes for a companion to Peter Boone and Simon Johnson’s Doomsday cycle post from yesterday. Let us cut to the chase of Wolf’s argument: Now, after the implosion, we witness the extraordinary rescue efforts. So what […]
Read more...Tonight provides yet another example of a blogger who brought an important stories to light not being credited by the MSM, in this case, a harsh preliminary ruling against JP Morgan in a dispute involving its client Televisa. I was going to post on Felix Salmon’s story, which discussed some extraordinarily dishonest conduct by JP […]
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