Monthly Archives: April 2007

Ryan Changes his Mind About Treasury Job

To lose
one undersecretary of international
affairs
could be considered a misfortune; to lose
two
– especially when #2 hasn’t even started in the job yet –
looks suspiciously like carelessness.

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Ashraf Ghani for World Bank President?

Gabriel Rozenberg has a startling
article
in the Times today saying not only that the White House was "drawing
up a list of candidates to succeed" the embattled Paul Wolfowitz, but that
"most prominent on the list" is Ashraf Ghani.

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“For a $10m Loan, it’s not Worth Sending Someone to a Meeting”

$10 million is chump change for hedge funds these days.
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New York to get Congestion-Pricing Plan

Congestion pricing is never popular before it is introduced. But if the experience in London and Stockholm is any guide, people will learn to love it – just as they learned to love New York’s smoking ban – once they see how much better the city becomes as a result.
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Bank Shareholders vs Bank Clients

It’s possible for small advisory boutiques to sit on the financing and investing sidelines – and some very old and venerable names do just that. But they tend not to be publicly-listed companies. If you submit to the tyranny of the shareholder, then your clients will necessarily always come second.
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The Emerging Markets Grow Up

Emerging markets used to be an exciting, wild-west asset class. It now trades a long way through US high-yield debt, and is fast converging on US investment-grade spreads. In other words, it’s becoming boring.
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New Union to Have 3.4 Million Members

The biggest task facing a new union will be to help manage globalization and bring its benefits to labor around the world, rather than to rail against it in a knee-jerk manner.
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Third Time Lucky for MetroPCS

Finally, gloriously, MetroPCS has raised an eye-popping $1.15 billion with its initial public offering.
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Hedge Funds to Help Prevent a Market Implosion

Distressed-asset funds reduce market volatility, and
act as an all-important source of bids when most investors want to sell. Hedge
funds aren’t always a source of risk and volatility
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Why a Cap-And-Trade System Beats a Carbon Tax

If you want to be certain about reducing carbon emissions, and you want to do it in the most economically efficient way possible, then cap-and-trade is the way to go.
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The Microsoft Giveaway: Less Than Meets the Eye

Microsoft’s plan to sell software for $3 in developing nations is better for Microsoft than it is for developing nations.
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The Fannie & Freddie Bailout: Less Than Meets the Eye

Yesterday’s announcement from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac won’t help most subprime borrowers.
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The Downside of M&A: Monopolies

Researchers recently asked 100 of the country’s top antitrust lawyers whether mergers between firms in the same industry are more likely to be approved than they were a decade ago. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being “significantly more favorable,” the average score was 4.9.
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Towards Universal Telephone Access

It’s cheap to give everybody on the planet access to a telephone.
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The $2,500 Car

Two companies are looking to build a car in India which will retail for less than $3,000.
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When Homeowners Who Can Pay, Don’t Pay

It’s one thing to make big mortgage payments in order to pay off a house. It’s another thing entirely to make mortgage payments after the house has already been sold.
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Can Wolfowitz Just Resign Already?

Worldbankpresident.org has been gloriously resuscitated with everything you ever wanted to know about Paul Wolfowitz, Shaha Riza, the long list of people calling for Wolfowitz’s ouster, and the much shorter list of Wolfowtiz defenders.
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Why the Size of the Derivatives Market is Cause for Worry

When a market is $300 trillion in size, even a tiny error can have systemic consequences.
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The BlackBerry is Closed

The Great
BlackBerry Outage of 2007
continues, it would seem, and I’m sure that Steve
Jobs
has a smile on his face right now, since his iPhone
can use any wifi network to send and receive emails. The irony is that Jobs,
given the choice, has always opted for closed, proprietary sytems over open
ones.
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Credit Where Credit Is Due

Citi blames high interest rates for its weak results; JP Morgan thanks low interest rates for its good ones.
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Derivatives: Eisinger Responds

Jesse Eisinger explains why it makes sense to worry about the derivatives markets.
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Tax Tall People!

Tall people have many advantages in life, and not just when attending rock
concerts. They earn more money, they’re more likely to become president, they
can take stairs two at a time when they’re in a hurry. It’s not fair. We
should tax them!

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How Risky is the Derivatives Market?

Derivatives perform much more good than harm, in areas from agriculture to catasrophe insurance. The risks are entirely theoretical; the benefits are very real.
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How Selfish is Robert Rubin?

Yes, Robert Rubin did very well out of his own economic policies. That’s a good thing.
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Arguments Over Carbon Emissions

It’s a good idea not to go into too much detail why we should reduce carbon emissions.
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