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Why H-P’s Stock Is Stuck: "It??s a well-run, slow growing giant of a company"
Chicago Overturns Foie Gras Ban
Is "the X-word" Dead? First it was XFRML. Then it was XBRL. Now it's ID, or Interactive Data.
Icahn Sends Open Letter to Board of Directors of Yahoo! Related: Microhoodonald's: "I am reminded of my long-standing hope that next on his list of takeover targets will be the McDonalds corporation. Because then, you see, every newspaper will do a headline saying Icahn has cheezburger?"
.If you're poor, you're generally acutely aware of exactly how much money you have at any given time, and that amount is generally very low. Andrew Goodman-Bacon and Leslie McGranahan have a paper out now on the Earned Income Tax Credit, saying that one of the great things about it is that it generally arrives just once a year:
Because the EITC makes one relatively large payment per year, it may provide low-income, credit-constrained households with a rare opportunity to make important big-ticket purchases.
Mark Thoma isn't very impressed:
... ContinueJoshua Benson, the bicycle program coordinator for the New York City Department of Transportation, mentions a startling statistic without even seeming to realise how startling it is:
... ContinueAs the number of cyclists in New York City has grown (75 percent increase in the last seven years), so has the demand for more parking.
Logging on to my Citibank account this morning, I found this, which recapitulates an email I received a few days ago:
The link takes you here, to a letter which simply begs for parsing.
... ContinueDuring the meal, one of my mates was drinking beer - 750ml bottles of Castle Lager (fondly called bombers) he ordered a 5th one, was advised that the price, which when he ordered his 1st, 2nd 3rd and 4th ones was 160 million per bottle, had gone up to 340 million per bottle.
Is this the same business model used in strip clubs?
(Via HM)
.I've somehow managed to avoid so much as mentioning the Clear Channel saga on this blog until now; for some reason I just couldn't get excited about it. But Heidi Moore gets a good quote in her summing up today of why it was so difficult to get a deal done:
"The irony was that the banks were more overleveraged than the company."
Remember, we're talking about a leveraged buy-out here. Says it all, really.
.The paper, from the NBER, is 70 pages long, but the conclusion, from Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, is simple, and stunning:
The main result of the paper is that changes in childhood lead exposure are responsible for a 56% drop in violent crime in the 1990s.
What are those "changes in childhood lead exposure"? Primarily the move to unleaded gasoline, which happened in the US between 1975 and 1985.
... ContinueChristie's sale on Tuesday night was a stunning success, ratifying the ridiculous levels to which contemporary art has soared in recent years. The Sotheby's sale on Wednesday night, by contrast, took the market to a whole new level. Not only isn't this market crashing, it looks very much as though the bubble is still inflating.
... ContinueDavid Gaffen is watching the VIX decline to levels well off its March highs, and back towards its lowest point of the year to date. Meanwhile, Alea is watching financial-instution credit default swap spreads decline to levels well off their March highs, and back towards the lowest point of the year to date. Could it be that we really are at the beginning of the end of the credit crisis? Has Ben Bernanke been successful in averting disaster?
... ContinueDo agricultural subsidies lower food prices? When I looked at this question last month, I dismissed it as a second-order effect: they might, they might not, either way it's not going to be a big deal when compared to the enormous swings in food prices that we've seen of late.
But Dean Baker is still bashing his drum, and now, after what I learned yesterday about rice in Japan, I'm much less indulgent of this sort of thing:
... ContinuePimco's investment professionals spent three days this month with the likes of Alan Greenspan, Nassim Taleb, and Mike Spence in something the bond manager calls its "Secular Forum". It fell to Mohamed El-Erian to sum it all up, and to draw some investing ideas from the discussion. The most interesting one, to me, is that this might be a great time to buy bank debt. Writes El-Erian:
... ContinueThe Discord in Similarity: John Thain is doing a better job than Vikram Pandit.
Of Hedges, Hot Dish, and Hogwash: The Ben Stein Watch to end all Ben Stein Watches.
Australian Bank Acquires Rival for $17.5 Billion: Apparently there's a bank in Australia called St George. Which is worth $17.5 billion. Good to see some banks are still spending their capital, rather than raising it.
FHA Chief Criticizes Rescue Plan: "I think the president is right to veto" Barney Frank's bill, says the man who would largely be in charge of enacting it.
Bubble Land: On the semiotics of the Blackstone annual report. Wherein Blackstone Goes “Reservoir Dogs”:
In terms of Jack Flack's five levels of CEO media hell, AIG's Martin Sullivan has now graduated from "on the ropes" to "dead man walking". The WSJ's headline says it all: "AIG's Chief Faces Worries Of Investors and Directors" - which means that board members are now grumbling to the press, rather than to the CEO directly. When that happens, it's all over - especially with Hank Greenberg grumbling loudly on the sidelines:
... ContinueDear NYT,
What the fuck are you doing?
The Gray Lady devotes 1,200 words and four reporters today to covering in mind-numbing detail the fact that a television anchor inadvertently said the word "fuck" live on air. (Of course, being the NYT, it can't actually print the word, which makes the whole story even sillier.)
How do I know about this story? Well, it's on the business home page, for starters - and in the NYT Business RSS feed. I do understand that New York is a media town. Even so, somebody's news judgment is way out of whack here.
.Barry Diller, Condé Nast Portfolio cover star, has decisively prevailed in his fight with John Malone, the largest shareholder of the company Diller runs. Malone's Liberty Media won't appeal the court decision which went in Diller's favor in March, has agreed to Diller's breakup plan, has agreed not to increase its shareholding, and seems to be at peace with its 62% supervoting control of the company being diluted down to a simple 30% stake.
... ContinueBursting art bubble? What bursting art bubble? The Christie's sale last night looked for all the world as though it was taking place at the height of the party: not only did it bring in a very impressive $348 million, but 70% of the buyers were American.
... ContinueLibor Set for Overhaul as Credibility Is Doubted
Investors Cool to HPQ-EDS Deal: "HPQ has lost more market cap over the past 24 hours than the total purchase price of EDS."
AT&T price cut could juice iPhone sales: Or, for the opposite view, try this: Apple Squash
Park the Car: Gasoline consumption is down 7% year-on-year.
Conflicted Agents and Platonic Guardians: Interview with Alex Pollock: On the impossibility of an optimal regulatory structure.
The Storm: Katrina's educational silver lining.
.Go read Michael Kimmelman's obituary, it's one of the best things he's written.
... Continue