Category Archives: remainders

ISDA Sees Default Swaps Losses at $15 Billion, Not $250 Billion Self-Control, Delusion and Why Subscription Services Rule Wal-Mart Gives The New Yorker (And Forbes, Fortune, BizWeek etc) The Boot Does Senator Clinton Know How Little the United States Spends … Continue reading →

For Clinton, Government as Economic Prod: Leonhardt interviews the favorite for the presidency on her economic policy. Why 2008 isn’t 1971 (the first ever Curious Capitalist list!) Just When I Thought I Was Out: The Epicurean Dealmaker vs Martin Wolf, … Continue reading →

Do we need a recession to purge the rottenness out of our system? It seems the Americans tend to say no, while the Europeans are more likely to say yes. Bloomberg Still Deciding Whether to Buy Presidency: “At this point, … Continue reading →

Fed Chief Backs Quick Action to Aid Economy Tyler Cowen on inflation, glossed by Aaron Schiff The Pressure Room: The Epicurean Dealmaker explains investment banking. BF Dome In BF Louisiana Gets BS Treatment: The first industrial-scale geodesic dome, built by … Continue reading →

Banking pay just won’t go away: Andrew Clavell defends the banks. "Mortgage borrowers and mortgage-asset investors were both long housing assets, the former with a call option on the upside, the latter by shorting puts on the downside for yield … Continue reading →

Citigroup, Merrill Lynch Get $21 Billion From Outside Investors: Bloomberg has another one of those handy cut-out-and-keep tables of who’s invested what in whom. Wealth and Fame: Equity Private worries, on behalf of hedge-fund managers everywhere, about the risk posed … Continue reading →

Running Numbers: Surowiecki on how much the payrolls report can be trusted. Citi and the Kitchen Sink Theory: "Banks cannot just arbitrarily decide how large they want their write-downs to be. But assigning values to mortgage-related securities these days is … Continue reading →

If, When, How: A Primer on Fiscal Stimulus: "Policies that are potentially most effective include temporary and refundable tax credits, temporary increases in food stamps, and a temporary extension of unemployment insurance benefits. Policies that are especially counterproductive include permanent … Continue reading →

Huckabee’s Tax Plan Is Brilliant: Landsburg defends the Fair Tax. Kleiman rebuts. Mozilo severance: $110 million and change Street Smarts: Economists Take on Traffic Safety

RiskMetrics’ IPO promises payoff: Soon, Institutional Shareholder Services will be advising how shareholders should vote on its own parent. NYSE Euronext Is in Talks to Buy Amex Hans Monderman, Engineer of Livable Streets, 1947-2008

Atomic Madeleines: Daniel Davies against nuclear power. Yale to Use More Endowment Funds: Both Yale and Harvard now pledge to spend 5% of their endowments next year. Eat the Bankers: The Epicurean Dealmaker on Wall Street bonuses.

Against Fiscal Stimulus Questioning an Adviser’s Advice: Sorkin on Lipton. Turns Out Judges Don’t Like "Efficient" Servicers: A Tanta classic. Ability to track risk has shrunk "forever" -Moody’s Daniel Grant vs Tyler Cowen on the capital-gains treatment of artworks. Deborah … Continue reading →

US newspapers disregard their consumers At Bonus time, No One Can Hear You Scream: "Today’s bulge-bracket fixed income trading floors are strewn with human wreckage which will be reincarnated as tomorrow’s ‘Unicredito Global Head of Globalness’ types." Can Foundations Take … Continue reading →

E*Trade figure does not compute… New Type of Analysis on the Iowa Results: How the big Republican winners in Iowa were McCain and Giuliani more than Hucakbee. But: Are Political Markets Really Superior to Polls as Election Predictors? A link … Continue reading →

Performance measurement and the challenge of active management: A basic hurdle any active investor should be able to clear. Milan introduces traffic charge: A €10 congestion charge to enter the city center, but you can get around it by installing … Continue reading →

Will Home Prices Hit Bottom by June? In flagrante delicto: Tim Price’s picks for 2008. Sensible. Democrats: More Than Health Care: David Leonhardt compares the economic policies of Clinton and Obama. Three Different Cures for Three Types of Financial Crises: … Continue reading →

Even before the Internet, news was pretty close to free: Justin Fox hits the nail on the head. (Related: Chris Anderson’s talk at Nokia.) Return to the Trial, or, why Western Union sucks: “Most of us need not concern ourselves … Continue reading →

Wall Street Journal’s Cursory Story on Collateralized Debt Obligations: Yves Smith takes it apart. Are dead-tree magazines good or bad for the climate? Why Portfolio.com has a larger carbon footprint than Portfolio magazine. World’s Biggest Building Coming to Moscow: Crystal … Continue reading →

Warren Buffett: The Awe of His Schucks: How the Sage of Omaha massages the media. Home Prices Fall for 10th Straight Month The Davos Question 08: What one thing do you think that countries, companies or individuals must do to … Continue reading →

Alphabet Soup and the Subprime Crisis: Did SWFs kill the M-LEC? Free Fernando Vina (part two) The NYT Invents “Basic Economics” To Hide Upward Redistribution Mud-Luscious: Balloons for UberNerds Now, Even Borrowers With Good Credit Pose Risks: The risk that … Continue reading →

FHA Secure: Wait, How Do 600 Applications Become 35,000? How Rich Is China? New York Condos Lure Deal-Seeking Europeans Bali Schmali? No Cliff Diving for 08-1: There aren’t enough subprime bonds for a new ABX series. Bain, TPG to Buy … Continue reading →

A battle Bush’s EPA can’t win: California is extremely likely to win its appeal of the EPA’s carbon-emissions decision. Citi Lays Off 30 C.D.O. Bankers The Bond Insurance Barge Scam: “For years the investment banks’ internal credit and risk departments … Continue reading →

CIC’s opportunistic deal is lesson learnt: The FT on the mechanics of the Morgan Stanley deal. (Also: Setser, on same.) Why I’ve Decided To Abandon (Virtually All) Ads On The Simple Dollar Economics: The Year in Books, 2007 Cerberus’ Feinberg: … Continue reading →

Is Housing Becoming Disconnected from Income? On the hook for £100bn – it’s “business as usual” at Northern Rock Very cool global GDP animation Closing the mortgage barn door: "Incentives to follow prudent lending procedures did not ‘erode,’ as Bernanke … Continue reading →

When a rose is not a rose: TAF is not "just" the discount window: "To call TAF the discount window without the stigma is like calling a person a corpse that is not dead." Subprime warning signs were made of … Continue reading →