October 2, 2008
A quick update on my Wells Fargo post from yesterday. Looks like Peter Eavis at the WSJ is pursuing a similar line, with a nervous piece in Friday's paper about "safe haven" banks Wells Fargo and U.S. Bancorp. Does he...
The nice thing about the hedge fund industry? Left alone in a room chasing returns long enough, it will consume itself and we will have one less over-levered bunch of crazies to worry about in this mass de-levering economy. Today's...
Quote of the day goes to my friends at CNBC who have a story up about consumers struggling to get credit. It contains the following quote of Jim Bianco dismissing the current Paulson plan as being unhealthily similar to a...
Great slide deck on making sense of the mortgage meltdown from a seminar today at the Milken Institute in Los Angeles. They always have the best and most data-rich slides, bar none. Required viewing, even if the page images via...
Almost two months ago I wrote a post here that frugality is the new black. I see that fellow TED-ster Juan Enriquez has an OpEd in today's Boston Globe saying something very similar -- he thinks we need to talk...
Buttercup: We'll never succeed. We may as well die here. Westley: No, no. We have already succeeded. I mean, what are the three terrors of the Fire Swamp? One, the flame spurt - no problem. There's a popping sound...
Today's quiz question: Only one OECD country does not have deposit insurance for individual accounts. The first person to name it in the comment section below gets the thrill of having me say "You were first". And for double-bonus points...
Nice Bloomberg chart of growth in U.S. real estate lending among major U.S. banks. You get a pretty clear idea of how badly timed Wachovia's buy of lender Golden West turned out to be, and how big of an inflection...
Two of my favorite semi-unusual places to watch for bank tells -- signs that a particular banking institution is struggling -- are Bankrate's 1-year CD page, and Mediaguide's weekly radio spending numbers. In the case of Bankrate, the indicator is...
Peter Wallison at AEI has out an attempted take-down of economist Paul Krugman ("Fannie, Freddie and You", 7/14/2008), and pretty much anyone else who thinks Freddie and Fannie's role in this crisis during the 2005-2007 period was irrelevant compared to...
Some quick links to a few things of interest: Wachovia limits fund access by colleges, inciting fears (NY Times) Ireland is a hedge fund (Andrew Clavell) Stop Treating Wall Streeters Like Villains and Resolve This Crisis (Economix/McTeer) CBO analysis of...
Thought-provoking quote from the opening paragraphs of a new Gillian Tett piece on "murky finance" over at the Financial Times. A couple of years ago, a senior investment banker berated me for using the word “murky†to describe the world...
Investor Warren Buffett was on Charlie Rose last night for the hour. Watch it. (And Charlie and Warren were apparently both here in San Diego yesterday, and neither one called. I'm hurt!)...
Some fairly staggering numbers in the September car sales data by brand. For the first time in recent memory, every single brand sold in the U.S. saw a decline in the month. Every one. The best performing brand, Audi, was...
Other than insisting on using notional value to really hike up the Fear Factor (and to irritate me), the current Fortune has a required reading article on credit default swaps (CDS). Best characterized as an insurance market run by under-capitalized...
A few people have asked via email why I haven't posted about the Senate's passage tonight of the Paulson plan, V2.217. The honest answer: I just don't care. Sorry, I don't. I'm exhausted from this crap, and I like the...
