Monthly Archives: February 2007

Have you read that Michael Pollan article on nutritionism yet? You really should. Here’s a chunk: Most nutritional science involves studying one nutrient at a time, an approach that even nutritionists who do it will tell you is deeply flawed. … Continue reading →

You can bet on people dying: Liam Pleven and Ian McDonald in the WSJ have a good overview of how life-insurance companies are increasingly turning to the capital markets to hedge the risks they bear of insured individuals dying too … Continue reading →

According to a rumor over at Dealbreaker, one of the big losers in the subprime mess is none other than Goldman Sachs: “Not sure if this is on your radar, but a Goldman trader took a $1B (yes, that is … Continue reading →

“If it walks, ducks and quacks like garbage it passes the smell test of being garbage.” —Nouriel Roubini

The WSJ had a wonderful Reply-All (think a techy version of Econoblog) yesterday on the subject of whether the XM-Sirius merger would be good for consumers. Mark Cooper, a consumer advocate, said no; Donald Russell, a former DoJ lawyer, said … Continue reading →

Here’s the chart of yesterday’s price action in the Dow, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq. Note anything crazy? Like a whopping great big down-250-points-in-one-tick plunge in the Dow at about 3pm? As you can see from the broader stock … Continue reading →

Remember last week, when the world was carefree, and all we had to worry about were minor things like the fate of the planet? David Leonhardt’s Economix column bravely entered the world of discounting — and managed to get it … Continue reading →

Brad Setser says that “I thought Leonhardt was better than usual” today — and he’s right. David Leonhardt’s Economix column comes on a Wednesday, which is perfect timing to look at the economic fundamentals, insofar as there are any, behind … Continue reading →

Dan Gross gets it. Andrew Leonard gets it too. In fact, any halfways-decent financial journalist gets it, and, if honest, would simply write a story saying “the market went down and we don’t know why”. But instead we’re inundated with … Continue reading →

It seems that no one has a pleasant word today for Moody’s, except maybe investors in Icelandic bank bonds. The ratings agency went on a triple-A spree yesterday, bringing pretty much every Icelandic bank up to Aaa status. Landsbanki was … Continue reading →

Steven Johnson explains today why he ended up accepting money for his Web 2.0 venture from VCs: The assumption had always been that we would not seek out venture capital funding for the company — at least in its first … Continue reading →

I’m slowly becoming convinced that 95% of talk about negative equity comes either from anecdote or from extrapolation, and that there are actually few if any reliable statistics on how much negative equity there really is in the US. But … Continue reading →

So Chinese stocks fell by 9%, Alan Greenspan uttered the word “recession“, US stocks are down, credit spreads are widening, and emerging-market bonds are being hit. It’s time to take a step back. The Intrade recession contract is at an … Continue reading →

Robin Hanson asks for disagreement case studies. When I was at RGE, I developed a bullish, trust-the-market persona to act as a foil to Nouriel Roubini’s ultrabearish position. Brad Setser was kinda in between. The interesting thing to me, which … Continue reading →

TXU is one of the most environmentally unfriendly companies in the world, and the enormous amount of bad press that it’s been getting as even spilled over onto banks such as Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley. Now, of course, … Continue reading →

Greg Palast is an admirably bulldoggish reporter. Pop over to his blog, and you’ll see that the last six entries are all on the subject of vulture funds in general, and the Donegal vs Zambia case in particular. Palast reported … Continue reading →

I’m a little bit late to the game, here, but let me point you to the latest piece from Thomas Palley, entitled "Expand Sarbox, Not Shrink It". The idea is that US shareholders need more protection, not less, and Palley … Continue reading →

I’m still waiting for Dean Baker’s blog entry on why the risk of a credit crunch means that we should start importing more white collar professionals now. But in the mean time, enjoy this, from the New York Times leader … Continue reading →

Have you read Nelson Schwartz’s profile of Steve Schwartzman? The best quote in the piece goes to Schwartzman himself: "I’m in it because I like to be excellent and to win." Schwartzman is painted as yet another humorless billionaire financier … Continue reading →

I’ve been looking a bit at JetBlue, and what happened to its stock price over the past 10 days or so. The airline was hit very badly by New York’s snowstorm on Wednesday the 14th: that day, and the following … Continue reading →

I love getting nerdy with EMTA’s volume surveys, and now they’ve released the big annual survey for all of 2006. In case the press release has disappeared behind a firewall again, here’s the gist: Emerging Markets debt trading reached its … Continue reading →