Category Archives: remainders

Why size matters: Steve Waldman is a fan of banks getting smaller. In Market Cap, Google Now Bigger Than GE The Taiwanese war against tax evasion: Clever. The Government Crackdown on Peer-to-Peer Lending: I think it should be regulated by … Continue reading →

My Manhattan Project: The first-person story of Mike Osinski, whose software fuelled the mortgage-securitization boom. TR thoughts on ticket re-sellers / scalping: Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails explains the economics of concert tickets. Huffington Post launches journalism venture: Arianna … Continue reading →

Automakers Seek $14 Billion More in Aid: And will surely seek more still, in a couple more months, if they get this now. Bill Moyers interviews Simon Johnson: Video here. Investors caught as regulators swoop on Stanford: The game was … Continue reading →

Wristcutters: An Economic Story: My Bloggingheads diavlog with Jesse Eisinger. Saving Federal Arts Funds: Selling Culture as an Economic Force: The Senate voted against it, but $50 million in extra arts funding did make it into the final stimulus bill. … Continue reading →

GM to Offer Two Choices: Bankruptcy or More Aid: And if it gets the "more aid", it’ll surely be back for yet more later. This risks becoming the bottomless bailout. Do Androids Dream of Apple-Blackberry Crumble? The demise of the … Continue reading →

Under One Stress Test, Big Banks Look Anemic: If the government’s stress test is anything like Creditsights’s stress test, then Wells Fargo will need another $119 billion; BofA, $99 billion; JPMorgan, $124 billion; Citi, $101 billion; Goldman Sachs, $47 billion; … Continue reading →

Confessions of a Reluctant Whistleblower, Or how the Blogosphere took on Stanford: Alex Dalmady blogs! Lots of interesting inside-media tidbits, too, if you like that kind of thing. Half of all CDOs of ABS failed: Looks like the markets were … Continue reading →

Dalmady to Stanford International Bank: Show Me The Money! Alex Dalmady comes right out and says that the $8 billion doesn’t exist. Right now, I’m inclined to agree with him: I asked the Stanford spokesman this afternoon if he was … Continue reading →

Starting Public-Sector Jobs With Parting Gifts in Hand: Tim Geithner is getting about $500k from the New York Fed; Mary Schapiro is getting $7.2 million from Finra. Disfarmer — The Puppet Version: Richard Lacayo says that bunraku-puppet photographer-bioplays with live … Continue reading →

The case for bonuses: "The answer is the one given by the Tory leader David Cameron today, which is that if taxpayers hadn’t rescued those banks then those employees wouldn’t have jobs, let alone bonuses." CNBC vs. Barrons: The Complete … Continue reading →

U.S. Sovereign CDS Rockets to 82 bp: And it’s still very unclear who’s buying this protection. Deutsche Bank Fallen Trader Left Behind $1.8 Billion Hole: As suspected, it was on the CDS basis trade. Harvard Endowment to Cut 25% of … Continue reading →

Wells Fargo’s Equity Pumped Up by Squishy Asset: "Exclude the servicing rights and Wells’s price-to-tangible-book ratio soars to about 4.3 times", compared to 1.2 for JPMorgan. AP alleges copyright infringement of Obama image: Talk about tone-deafness. First the silly blogfight, … Continue reading →

Remarks by the President on Executive Compensation: Note that he uses the term "top executives" twice. This quite clearly does not apply to most bankers. SEC Replies: Madoff Hearings Part II Liveblogged: The death throes of the SEC begin. Risk … Continue reading →

On the Failure of Macroeconomists: They ignore fiscal policy, and are therefore looking quite irrelevant right about now. That luxury item may be ‘Made in China’: Even if it doesn’t say so on the label. Webcomics Business Model: Great stuff. … Continue reading →

Coconuts and Bank Prices: What $100 billion buys you, these days. The Economy According To Mint: Aggregated financial data. But without year-over-year comparisons, it’s of limited usefulness. Rahm’s Doctrine And Breaking Up The Banks: This is our one big opportunity … Continue reading →

Why stimulus spending should go to public art Bailouts for Bunglers: Paul Krugman on why the government should nationalize. Hazardous Materials? Jim Surowiecki on overblown moral-hazard concerns. OpenTable files for IPO, finally: And it might actually make sense, even in … Continue reading →

The game changer: George Soros joins the CDS demonizers, but adds some substance to their arguments. Nouriel Roubini Partying With Intellectual Peers: Where’s Julia Allison’s high-tech name badge? Maybe her cleavage suffices. Ben Stein to Deliver Commencement Address: At the … Continue reading →

A Rich Income in ’06 Was $263 Million: With an effective tax rate of just 17%. ISDA Announces Agreement to Make J.P. Morgan’s CDS Analytical Engine Available as Open Source: Which makes it more dangerous, I think. Bush War on … Continue reading →

Nationalize the Banks? Analyst Urges Other Options: Although it’s worth remembering that if they’re nationalized, Mike Mayo won’t have a job any more. Citi, BofA Show Investors Can’t Bank on Capital: Beware regulators touting capital ratios. Ecuador’s Dangerous Game: Abby … Continue reading →

Everything You Wanted to Know about Credit Default Swaps–but Were Never Told: A long overdue piece. Aid Watch: Bill Easterly’s new blog. Another View: A More Radical Plan for Bank Stability: Peter Solomon’s plan sounds like nationalization, even if he … Continue reading →

Nationalization Gets a New, Serious Look: The nationalization debate makes it onto the front page of the NYT. Broader point about Geithner, Obama, China, and "manipulation": Fallows wants the Obama administration to be grown-up about China. Bill Ackman No Longer … Continue reading →

Obama and the Teßø on Men, and Other Short Stories. Part 1: Some whip-smart observations from Jeremy Grantham. George W. Bush Administration White House Web Site: For all those whitehouse.gov links which don’t work any more. Basic Stimulus Arithmetic: "We … Continue reading →

Did the Swedes nationalize? What does that mean, anyway? What if the bank in question was already 77% owned by the state? How Some Firms Boost the Boss’s Pension: By using an artificially low discount rate designed for sums under … Continue reading →

Will the Banking Crisis End with Nationalization? A very interesting discussion, if I do say so myself, between Binyamin Appelbaum, Peter Cohan, Simon Johnson, and me. The upshot: nationalization is politically unpalatable, but there are very similar alternatives which can … Continue reading →

Wind down the market in five-legged dogs: A clear and simple argument against securitization. Nominees and double standards: A woman in Tim Geithner’s position might have had a much harder time. We’re all nationalizers now: "The question does not seem … Continue reading →