Bailout

Counterparties

Posted on February 09, 2011
Daily Mail leases 5,200 square feet in SoHo (a/k/a HuffPoVille) -- Crain's

How microconsignment improves on microfinance

Posted on February 09, 2011
Tina Rosenberg has a great pair of posts about microconsignment, which is a much more robust model than microfinance.

The bumpy road ahead for munis

Posted on February 09, 2011
The muni-market hearings in Washington today might be a bit of a snore, but Michael Corkery's long curtain-raiser for them in the WSJ is a good one, and serves to begin the slow yet necessary process of moving beyond loud and simplistic questions along the lines of "Meredith Whitney: threat or menace?".

Counterparties

Posted on February 08, 2011
US wants Mubarak to travel to Baden Baden for a "prolonged health check" -- Spiegel

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How AIG died

Posted on February 08, 2011
Many thanks to Roddy Boyd for sending me over e-galleys of his new book on the implosion of AIG, Fatal Risk.

Lending Club?s loss-rate numbers

Posted on February 08, 2011
As I thought he would, Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche replied to yesterday's post with exactly the numbers I asked for.

The silver lining to occupational licensing

Posted on February 08, 2011
Stephanie Simon's WSJ article on the rise of jobs needing a license of some description has resulted in a predictable rash of approving comments, especially from Matt Yglesias, for whom the issue is something of a hobby-horse.

Why the NYT will lose to HuffPo

Posted on February 08, 2011
Tom McGeveran asks an important question, in his analysis of the AOL-HuffPo deal:

HuffPo?s future

Posted on February 07, 2011
The $315 million that AOL is paying for the Huffington Post is roughly 3X the valuation seen at its last capital raise two years ago, is 10X its 2010 revenues and is roughly 5X estimated forward 2011 revenues.

Counterparties

Posted on February 07, 2011
Centralized clearing could make synthetic ETFs uneconomic. Is that a feature or a bug? -- Index Universe

Annals of Ben Stein?s sleazy paymasters, part 215

Posted on February 07, 2011
A new law, aimed at people like Ben Stein's sleazy paymasters Vertrue, intends to cut off their major source of funding by making it much harder for them to quietly charge people modest amounts of money every month without them noticing.

Arianna?s new empire

Posted on February 07, 2011
A brash and charismatic household name is brought in to apply magical fairy dust to a struggling media franchise with declining relevance and revenues.

Howard Marks has contempt for his creditors

Posted on February 07, 2011
Two news articles from Friday afternoon I'm just getting around to now. First up, Michael Aneiro:

How to filter out fake news

Posted on February 06, 2011
Nick Denton uses Facebook as his news delivery mechanism of choice:

Bankerspeak of the day, James Gorman edition

Posted on February 06, 2011
Well done to Lucy Kellaway for picking up on this classic bit of bankerbollocks from Morgan Stanley's James Gorman:

The deal, and the catch

Posted on February 06, 2011
Ron Lieber's column on Prosper and Lending Club misses both the upside and the downside of these peer-to-peer lending platforms, I think.

Counterparties

Posted on February 04, 2011
Consumerfinance.gov is live, with a logo and everything -- CFPB

Three takes on JP Morgan and Madoff

Posted on February 04, 2011
I love the NYT's coverage, by Diana Henriques, of Irving Picard's lawsuit against JP Morgan Chase.

Ireland?s lessons for Spain

Posted on February 04, 2011
It almost goes without saying, but you have to read Michael Lewis's tour de force on Ireland in Vanity Fair. It's long -- over 13,000 words -- and it's beautifully written, giving both a big-picture perspective on the Irish economic boom and bust, and a credible account of the fateful meeting at which the Irish government decided that it should go ahead and guarantee the debts of all Irish banks.

Messy payrolls

Posted on February 04, 2011
On its face, today's payrolls report makes no sense.

Stock-listings charts of the day

Posted on February 03, 2011
Guan Yang sends over a couple more charts showing the total number of stocks listed on US exchanges. First there's the NYSE, Amex, and Nasdaq combined: this one goes back to 1973, and has never been lower.

When plutocrats collect artists

Posted on February 03, 2011
The 4th Davos Philanthropic Roundtable, held in Davos during the World Economic Forum, was one of the more surreal events to happen last week.

The necessity of deleveraging

Posted on February 03, 2011
Bethany McLean has an excellent column on the FCIC report, concentrating on the explosion of debt among both homeowners and banks. The numbers bear repeating:

Why Treasury won?t issue a century bond

Posted on February 03, 2011
The Treasury held one of its regular official meetings with Wall Street on Tuesday, to talk about the market in government debt. The minutes are here, and reveal a presentation on the possibility of issuing extremely long-dated debt:

Counterparties

Posted on February 02, 2011
Carnival cruise lines has paid just 1.1% in taxes on $11.3 billion in profits over the past 5 years -- NYT

Beware the WSJ?s pay statistics

Posted on February 02, 2011
This is getting to be a habit: today's WSJ article claiming that Wall Street pay has hit a new record high in 2010 is seriously flawed.  

Anonymous financial professionals online

Posted on February 01, 2011
One of the most exciting aspects of the financial blogosphere is that we have unprecedented levels of access to the unvarnished analysis and opinion of financial professionals, rather than always having to have those opinions filtered through the news judgment of journalists and their editors.

Bad housing advice of the day, Philly edition

Posted on February 01, 2011
Erin Arvedlund -- yes, that Erin Arvedlund -- has a pretty crazy column in the Philadelphia Inquirer, under the headline "Why buying gold may be better financially than buying a house".

Paywalls and cannibalization

Posted on January 31, 2011
I'm surprised, but pleased, to see this coming from FT editor Lionel Barber, in his Hugh Cudlipp lecture today:

Chris Hayes on fractal inequality at Davos

Posted on January 31, 2011
A video in which Chris Hayes and I discuss fractal inequality and other topics.

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