Hedge Fund Manager: Goodbye and F---- You

From the Scorched Earth Files: Andrew Lahde, manager of a small California hedge fund, Lahde Capital, burst into the spotlight last year after his one-year-old fund returned 866 percent betting against the subprime collapse. Last month, he did the...

Oct 17 2008

How Wall Street Loses by Fixing Prices

There's a headline on Bloomberg News today that's bound to ruffle the feathers of the Sarbanes-Oxley antagonists out there: "IPO Fees in Europe Catch Wall Street for the First Time Since WWII." Tighter regulations here in the U.S. are driving...

May 29 2007

Alphabet Soup for the Soul (of Panicky Bankers)

In relatively short order, the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department have marshaled an army of acronyms to battle first the mortgage meltdown, then a credit freeze, and now economic collapse generally. It began last December with the Term Auction...

Oct 21 2008

Wall Street's Next Generation: Latvians?

What kinds of innovative industries will America's next generation create that will help propel the country back to economic dominance? Don't expect them to come from the sciences. Reconfirming what we've always known, kids in America continue to lag far...

Dec 09 2008

Another Crack in the Glass Ceiling

Wall Street may have problems keeping its top women executives, as illustrated by the reported departure of Sallie Krawcheck from Citigroup. But the rest of corporate America appears to be doing a better job. DuPont has named Ellen Kullman chief...

Sep 23 2008

Bank Megamerger of the Day

While Wall Street has been utterly transformed by this financial crisis, US Main Street banking has not been. Yes, your local Fleet branch is now part of the same empire that owns Merrill Lynch, but it turned itself into...

Sep 18 2008

Decoupling, the Theory That Won't Die

And why it shouldn't.

Apr 07 2008

American Dream Deferred

Wall Street may be wringing its hands over the bankruptcy of mortgage lenders and blowup of Bear Stearns hedge funds, but the people really hurting in the subprime market meltdown are African American households, new Census figures suggest. Home ownership...

Jul 27 2007

More Tragic Victims of the Slump: Playboy Bunnies

At the end of a week in which Wall Street descended ever further into chaos and despair, we're sorry to be the bearer of even more gloomy news. Playboy Bunnies might be the latest victims of the global financial...

Sep 26 2008

Tim Geithner on the Financial Crisis: A Mock Interview

I popped uptown this afternoon, to the Council on Foreign Relations, to hear NY Fed president Tim Geithner give a big speech on the current financial crisis. Geithner is the central banker closest to the markets, but he's been...

Mar 06 2008

Fashion Breakfast: Dandies, Doonan, Wall Street, Catwalks, Parties

Dandies of the world beware. Artist Sebastian Horsely was coming to the U.S. to promote his new book, Dandies of the Underworld, but refused entry to the U.S. on the grounds of 'moral turpitude'. He was wearing his top hat...

Mar 24 2008

Chart of the Day: Adjusting Social Security for Age Inflation

When Social Security was enacted in 1935, the average 65-year-old could expect to live another 12 years. In 2005, that life expectancy had increased by 7 years. Starting in 1975, the U.S. started a cost-of-living-adjusting to account for price inflation....

Aug 15 2008

Subprime: The Cause Of All Market Moves

It's all subprime's fault.

Jul 31 2007

Your Guide to SWF Bank Investments

Here's a handy cut-out-and-keep guide to SWF bank investments, in the wake of the latest speculation about Merrill Lynch selling a stake to Singapore's Temasek. Date Bank Fund Country Size March 06 Standard Chartered Temasek Singapore $4 billion November...

Dec 21 2007

Wall Street Humor Turns Bitter

Jokes about the economic crisis and Wall Street's role in it are starting to turn a bit more bitter. Witness Jay Leno's monologue on the Tonight Show last night... "I listened to president Bush's speech. I think I understand this...

Sep 26 2008

Competitiveness and Mortgages: The WSJ Chimes In

The Wall Street Journal's columnists have clearly reading the same things that I have been over the past few days. Alan Murray today picks up on the report showing that New York is still globally competitive, while Jonathan Clements looks at the advisability of having mortgage debt and investments at ...

May 23 2007

Chart of the Day: Unions Doing Worse Than Ever

Stanford's John Pencavel has created an indicator of union well-being which takes into account the wage difference between union and nonunion workers and the fraction of workers who are union members. Applying this to the United States, Pencavel says: The...

Aug 22 2008

This is Not Good

The WSJ reports that talks to save the automakers have broken down in the Senate, and that there will be no bailout. Once again, Congressional Republicans have killed an intiative backed by both the White House and the Democrats...

Dec 11 2008

The Dollar's Not That Strong

While I'm throwing darts at Paul Kedrosky, I ought to mention that I also think he's quite wrong about the dollar. He has a good line -- "think of the dollar as Squealer the Pig collectible Beanie Babies circa...

Oct 29 2008

Stock Indices: The 10-Year View

How have various stock indices done over the past ten years? The Brazilian Bovespa might have fallen by 10% today, but you'd still have been much better off there than here in the US. On the other hand, if...

Sep 29 2008

America's Ad Hoc Fiscal and Monetary Policy

What is this Supplementary Financing Program, under which Treasury is essentially lending money to the Fed? Does it mean that the Fed's run out of money, as Paul Murphy would have it? Does it mean, pace Tyler Cowen, that...

Sep 17 2008

Better Red...

"America is more communist than China is right now. You can see that this is welfare of the rich, it is socialism for the rich... it's just bailing out financial institutions," Jim Rogers, the commodities investor, on CNBC Europe. Brothers...

Sep 08 2008

Incentives for Inflation

Steve Waldman explains that America's net-debtor position (both at the sovereign and at the individual level) means that there's a lot of pressure towards inflation: Inflation helps debtors at the expense of creditors. In democracies where those who can...

Aug 15 2008

How a Weaker Dollar Can Mean a Bigger Trade Deficit

Tim Worstall, after leaving a semi-cryptic comment on my blog yesterday, explains himself in a bit more detail today. I was confused about how US net exports could deteriorate even as the currency was weakening, but it turns out...

May 01 2008

The US Economy Reaches a Fork in the Road

There's been a lot of good stuff written on the GDP report, much of it on the slightly boring question of whether it means we're in a recession. To me, the answer's pretty simple: you have to be clear...

Apr 30 2008

Lehman Europe and Prime Brokerage Counterparty Risk

Euromoney has allowed free access to its November cover story on Lehman Brothers Europe for this weekend only, so go there now and read it while you can. It starts off at much the same place as John Hempton's...

Oct 31 2008

Blogonomics: Even Great Commenters Can't Generate Wall Street Salaries

On Saturday, Tyler Cowen posted a 62-word blog entry, of which 29 words constituted a quote from Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational. It was a throwaway "fact of the day" post, comparing the cost of robberies in the United States ($525...

Feb 11 2008

Bank Soundness Datapoint of the Day

This has got to sting, in New York and London: Canada has the world's soundest banking system, closely followed by Sweden, Luxembourg and Australia, a survey by the World Economic Forum has found as financial crisis and bank failures...

Oct 09 2008

Extra Credit, Weekend Edition

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...

Jan 19 2008

Financial Crisis: Great Tech Start-ups In; iPhone Beer Simulators Out

Kevin Maney writes: Certainly tech guru Tim O'Reilly is onto something when he says that in this economy, if your tech start-up is making a beer chugging simulator for the iPhone -- you may want to rethink things.But what's going...

Sep 30 2008