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Lesson from the Mislabeled “Fiscal Cliff”: Please Spare Us Any Future Countdowns
No comments on Lesson from the Mislabeled “Fiscal Cliff”: Please Spare Us Any Future Countdowns“The laws will change on that day, it’s true, but the impact will be spread out over many, many months.”
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Honest Labor: From Mach 2 to Muenster to Madison
In which your scribe rediscovers the redemptive power of work.
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Curse You, NY Post: I Had "Reign of Thain" First
In 2007, when John Thain became the first outsider named to lead Merrill Lynch in the firm’s history, I called a bunch of former colleagues there, looking for the insider scoop on the company where…
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Bankruptcy is the Right Medicine for Automakers
Look at the bright side – GM stock only has $3 farther to fall. (From Yahoo Finance) The more I read and think about a potential further bailout of the auto industry, the nuttier the…
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It’s a Bad Idea to Ridicule Others (They May Be Right)
Via Andrew Sullivan, a video showing how Peter Schiff, a.k.a. “permabear” and “Dr. Doom,” was subjected to an extraordinary level of derision on cable business programs last year as he correctly forecast the coming economic…
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The Slippery Slope of Government Bailouts
Stephen Bainbridge has done the best job I’ve seen of describing why bailing out the U.S. automobile industry — as proposed by Congressional Democratic leaders — would be a terrible mistake. Point by point he…
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Wall Street Compensation in the Bailout Era
As bonus time approaches, Wall Street firms are trying to balance the need to retain key executives against concern about the “optics” of giving boatloads of bailout money to the people who arguably created the…
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In Defense of "Wall Street Greed"
The titans of Wall Street gathered this morning at the NYSE to discuss the ongoing crisis. The writeup of the gathering in the WSJ Deal Journal blog is well worth reading, once you get past…
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Bailout Wisdom from Various Sources
Bill Whittle recently had a very painful medical mishap, which inspired him to refer to “the $700 billion kidney stone the economy is trying to pass.” He prescribes some therapeutic pain: Every decision we make…
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Isn’t Marking to Market Supposed to be a Good Thing?
OK, I’m trying to get my head wrapped around this whole market meltdown thing. One of the things that has puzzled me is seeing complaints that some of the various bailouts have been triggered in…