October 23, 2008
I did another column this week for Tina Brown's new site. This one's on the fall of Alan Greenspan, and you can find it here....
Using some new data today from Fitch Ratings, here is the concentrations of high-yield debt by sector in the U.S. The chart compares the current situation with the onset of prior recessionary periods beginning in 2000 and 1989. High-side anomalies...
Interesting new Minneapolis Federal Reserve paper out attempting to puncture some supposed myths about the current financial crisis. I take its points, but I also think it's being a little mischievous. Definitely worth reading though. The financial press and policymakers...
The people at Bespoke Premium have out an interesting chart today showing the collapse of what they call the "globalization bubble". In essence, the chart shows the rapid growth, and subsequent collapse of Baltic Dry Index, a measure of international...
Today's House Oversight hearing into the credit crisis with witnesses Alan Greenspan, Chris Cox, and John Snow is grim and awful political theater. While not unexpected, it is by the most politicized hearing we have had too date, with...
I promised to update people on a trojan that some people said their antivirus programs had alerted them to on my site. It was allegedly contained in an International Monetary Fund image. On being alerted to it, I took the...
I feel like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Who are these guys that just keep coming? -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. A great quote from a great movie opens a tough-minded NY Times piece tonight about...
The following more or less supports what some have been saying for a while -– that major banks in the U.S. and the U.K. will end up being entirely nationalized before this crisis is over –- but it's still a...
Compare the recent performance of four currencies now going through economic crises. Argentina is nationalizing its pension system to bail itself out of debt obligations; Hungary has had foreign lending dry up and force it to yank rates to double-digits;...
There is a great/harrowing audio track available from a PBS discussion last night with Benoit Mandelbrot and Nassim Taleb. The topics include wildness, hedge fund deleveraging, turbulence, bank insolvency, slack, global economic network effects, and why both Taleb and Mandelbrot...
