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Browsing All Posts filed under »finance«
Recommended Reading: “The Great Depression” by Benjamin Roth
Found the book via Megan McArdle’s recent post – “Should We Just Call a ‘Do-Over’ on the Mortgage Market?“. (The answer is a resounding “no” BTW… There are other more painful, but more effective ways to solve the problem.) Benjamin Roth was a lawyer in Youngstown, OH through the Great Depression and kept a running […]
Recent Housing Bubble reads
April 19, 2010
Just finished reading “The Big Short” by Michael Lewis – a nice explanation of CDOs and their contribution to the housing bubble. Lewis takes a head-shaking-you-won’t-believe-this-happened viewpoint than Gregory Zuckerman’s “The Greatest Trade Ever.” (Zuckerman takes more of the holy-crap-you-won’t-believe-that-this-Paulson-guy-figured-out-the-trade! approach.) Lewis only mentions John Paulson and his hedge fund once in the entire book […]
Indulgences & Seigniorage
November 27, 2009
(Note: My thoughts on this aren’t completely formed, but I felt it important to record as a start to the formalization process…)Trolling through TED.com, I came across Jay Walker’s presentation about his Library of Human Imagination. One of the artifacts he displayed during his talk was a Gutenberg Bible (about 90 seconds into the video) […]
"Too Big to Fail" & Charlie Rose
October 21, 2009
A recent issue of Fortune Magazine included a nice piece about Charlie Rose – “Why business loves Charlie Rose.” I’m thankful for the article because it reminded me how much I enjoy his program so I’ve now set my DVR to record these episodes. Heck, if Warren Buffet watches it, I probably should. Mr. Rose […]
John Hussman on the Banking & Housing Markets
March 31, 2009
From John Hussman, of Hussman Funds, this article provides one of the most lucid descriptions of why the poorly constructed (I hate using the word “toxic”…) mortgage assets on bank balance sheets pose such as problem, and a clear set of solutions that would probably work if implemented. Hussman explains why allowing the banks to […]
Geithner on George Stephanopoulos
March 29, 2009
Watching the George Stephanopoulos show this morning (I’m not sure why, but….), but here are some notes from the interview: “People with ideas still want to come to the United States.” “We need banks to take risk again – take a chance again on providing credit to that business…” After Stephanopoulos introduced Paul Krugman’s comments […]
Milton Ezrati at the IMN Distressed Investment Summit
March 19, 2009
Milton Ezrati, Lead Economist at Lord Abbott, opened Information Management Network “Distressed Investment Summit: Credit Crunch Investment Strategies for Institutional Investors” conference on Monday. From his viewpoint, the market is running on emotion, which is covering up current market fundamentals. And the market ran on emotion over the last couple of years, which previously covered […]
Paul Volcker on Bank vs. Hedge Fund Risk-Taking
March 9, 2009
Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve Chairman regarding risk profiles of banks vs. hedge funds: “Maybe we ought to have a two-tiered financial system,” Mr. Volcker said at conference at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Banks “should not be taking extraordinary risks in the marketplace.” This is the basic premise of the financial system. […]
The "Housing Rescue" by the numbers
March 4, 2009
The Obama administration released the details of the housing rescue today, and the WSJ put together a nice “Fact Sheet” that I just reviewed. Here’s the money reward if you purchased a home you could not afford, or were a lender that eschewed the standard practice of lending to credit-worth people: Servicers that modify loans […]
The United States, Collectivism & Radar Guns
March 3, 2009
As the market continues to unravel and the socialist agenda of the current political administration moves farther along its path, my source of solace has been the late, great Milton Friedman. “Uncle Milty,” as he’s known throughout economic circles, had much to say regarding socialism, the government’s constraint on markets, and American business. Socialism in […]
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October 19, 2010
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