September 24, 2008
Keaton: McManus. What the fuck is going on? McManus: The strangest thing... -- The Usual Suspects (1995) Here is a quick tag cloud of President's Bush's speech to the nation earlier tonight on the credit crisis. You'll notice,...
I'm speaking tomorrow at 12:30 at an event at the CFA Society of San Francisco. Come by and say hello if you're in the area. It should be fun. More information here....
Courtesy of Felix Salmon and some other sources, a list of all the known journalists and others in various stages of completion of books about the current crisis: Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean Andrew Ross Sorkin Roger Lowenstein Kate Kelly...
This interview with Warren Buffett on CNBC should be read in its entirely. An excerpt: What you have, Joe {Kernen], you have all the major institutions in the world trying to deleverage. And we want them to deleverage, but they're...
To be delivered with Jack Nicholson-style intonation, from A Few Good Men: "Son, we live in a world that has bonds and those bonds need to be bought by men with balance sheets. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant...
Some interesting comments from Henry Paulson to Time magazine in a new interview just out. The last nugget, in particular, caught my eye: I believe we're going to get a bill that works and a clean bill ... It certainly...
The idea of a company being "too big to fail" is wrongheaded. And I don't mean that no company should therefore require a bailout/bridge/whatever. No, it's just that focusing on size as the main metric is wrong. What we really...
The latest Vanity Fair includes New York mayor and all-around wealthy guy Michael Bloomberg doing the Proust Questionnaire. What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Height. What is your greatest extravagance? Popcorn. What is your current state of mind?...
And we have another member of the "shut up about moral hazard" club. (See here and here.) Ex Fed guy Bob McTeer signed up today via this posting to the new Economix blog at the NYT. The key reason to...
Nice (and harrowing) graphic from a savvy Martin Wolf column in yesterday's FT....
Nice editorial in today's Times of London echoing my prior comment here that people need to shut up already about "moral hazard". Having learnt the term, people tend to get a great deal too excited about moral hazard, the idea...
Missed this until now, but Pimco's Bill Gross weighed in on the Paulson Plan in today's Washington Post via an OpEd. He argues (with me) that this is not a generic financial downturn that can be cured by bed rest,...
Let's say that last Tuesday you were looking for a safe port in the storm as markets imploded. Where would you most profitably have gone? Oil? Gold? Cash? Swiss Francs? How about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As the following...
Regardless of your feelings about Larry Kudlow and/or Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (D.), this is amusing viewing....
Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone Group accidentally (I think) echoes a blackly comedic Michael Lewis column of almost a year ago in blaming the conniving poor for the current crisis: It’s a perfect storm. It started with Congress encouraging lending to...
After me demanding here for some time that President Bush stand up and defend himself and explain the current crisis, it now looks like it's going to happen. President Bush is considering whether to address Americans directly about the financial...
Dr. Strangelove: Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH? Ambassador de Sadesky: It was to be announced at the Party Congress on...
My friend and colleague Bob Litan has out a thoughtful essay on fixing finance. Definitely worth a careful read. My biggest disagreement with Bob's paper concern's the role of credit ratings agencies. As I have told him, they are largely...
That's why I'm turning Japanese I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so -- "Turning Japanese", The Vapors A primary objection many people seem to have to the Paulson plan is the unwillingness of Paulson and Bernanke...
More discussion from the Charlie Rose show on the current crisis, this time with guests Alan Blinder and Steven Pearlstein:...
It's nice to have a lot of money, but you know, you don't want to keep it around forever. I prefer buying things. Otherwise, it's a little like saving sex for your old age.' -- Warren Buffett explaining...
