The Second Wave of Bank Troubles

Floyd Norris notes that the S&P financials have sunk back to their mid-March lows. But although the index as a whole is back at its mid-March level, its components generally aren't. What we're seeing is pretty much what Mohamed...

Jun 07 2008

Pinstripes to Prison Stripes

A fraud case that prosecutors described as "the Enron of health-care financing" has ended with a federal jury in Ohio convicting five former executives of conspiracy, fraud and money laundering. The five — Donald H. Ayers, 71, of Fort Meyers,...

Mar 14 2008

Dependent Variables in Political Prediction Markets

There's a great example of the mathematics of dependent and independent variables over at InTrade right now. The betting company has just launched a CLINTON.LIFELINE contract, which reflects her chances of winning all three of the Ohio, Texas, and...

Feb 26 2008

Who's Your Googleganger?

I feel a little sorry for my friend, Kevin Maney of Westerville, Ohio. About a decade ago, he saw one of my USA Today columns and emailed me, noting that we share the same name. He was a professor at...

Oct 10 2007

Foreclosure Rate Is Gathering Steam

Hedge fund managers, mortgage brokers, and title-insurance company employees are not the only people to suffer from the housing-market meltdown. Anyone who needs to be reminded need look no further than the Mortgage Bankers Association's latest National Delinquency Survey. The...

Sep 06 2007

After Super Tuesday

Tomorow is the start of the Conservqative Political Action Committee meeting. The always-packed meeting of activists will be especially important for McCain to prove his bona fides with conservatives. Last year, he came in last place in the CPAC straw poll.

Feb 06 2008

How to Prevent Foreclosure, Ohio Style

Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann has one of the best plans for reducing foreclosures that I've seen yet. It targets homeowners rather than lenders, it costs a known and not particularly large amount of money, and it has the...

Apr 21 2008

Attention: You With the Graying Temples

Over 50? Underappreciated? Think about switching careers. Consider the health care industry. More than half of the Top 50 companies for workers over 50 are hospitals, health insurers, or other companies tied one way or another to the business of...

Sep 25 2007

How home prices can be steady even if median home prices fall

It's a well-known fact that the average new-home size has been growing steadily for years, and positively booming of late. So if those new homes bear the brunt of the slowdown, and are sold in much lower numbers, that could do nasty things to the median sales price even if ...

Apr 11 2007

Marketing Gimmick of the Week

It may not have aged as gracefully as fine wine, but that didn't diminish demand for 130-million-year-old dinosaur droppings. Auction house Bonhams New York sold two dinosaur deposits on Wednesday for more than twice their estimated value of $350...

May 01 2008

The Best Subprime Reporting and Analysis, Cont.

Tanta's on fire today. First came this, in re a court case in Ohio, where she suspected that Deutsche Bank had gotten sloppy with some paperwork: When Wall Street analysts stand up and demand that companies beef up back...

Nov 14 2007

Idle Chatter: AOL, AMI, A&F, etc.

-Acrimony, screaming matches and paranoia: Life at AOL. [NYT] -Very little was clarified on day 2 of the John Malone/Barry Diller court fight. [Portfolio] -American Media and Ron Burkle need to find $200 million in cash if they want to get their merger accomplished. Also, Moody's downgraded AMI's debt yesterday ...

Mar 12 2008

Electricity: Deregulation Sends Prices Soaring

David Cay Johnston's headline says it all: "Competitively Priced Electricity Costs More, Studies Show". When states deregulate their electricity sectors, the price of electricity goes up, not down – and the attempts of pro-deregulation advocates to spin the data otherwise...

Nov 06 2007

On Huffpo, Hillary's White House Dream Lives On

Hillary Clinton blogs! The New York senator contributed a piece to the Huffington Post this week, on "An Outrageous Attempt by the Bush Administration to Undermine Women's Rights." It's only the second post she's written (or "written"); the first one appeared a few days before the crucial March 4 primaries ...

Jul 24 2008

Truckers and Tasers

The Tupperware-style parties, the combo stun-gun-MP3-players, the pink models for her, and the poker-and-Playboy themed charity events were just the start. Taser International's newest marketing technique: selling their stun guns in truck stops. "Anybody's that's traveling does have concerns...

Jul 17 2008

Krugman Repeats Bogus Clinton Health Care Tale

Would somebody please get Paul Krugman a subscription to his own paper? On Friday, the New York Time op-ed econ-umnist led off his column with an anecdote that Hillary Clinton has used on the campaign trail to underscore the need for universal healthcare. The story is about a pregnant Ohio ...

Apr 15 2008