February 10, 2009
Publisher McGraw Hill has dropped my friend Barry Ritholtz's much-touted book Bailout Nation, just weeks before its publication. The reason? Barry says McGraw Hill was uncomfortable at corporate levels with the Ritholtz-ian (i.e. direct, pungent, and unfiltered) criticisms he was...
President Obama is on ABC Nightline tonight, and he is asked about bank nationalization. Here is the exchange from the transcript: TERRY MORAN: There are a lot of economists who look at these banks and they say all that garbage...
This won’t come as a surprise to anyone paying attention, but commercial rail traffic in the U.S. remains in an air pocket. As the following figure shows, January U.S. commercial rail traffic showed motor vehicles and metallic products leading the...
I’m as upset at the Fed, Treasury, and Wall Street as the next semi-sane person, but Congress pisses me off too. Just try to watch today’s hearings with too many House and Senate members getting basic terminology wrong (“default credit...
[Credit Suisse via FT]...
Wish I’d thought of this first, but Paul Krugman has an amusing take on the Taleb/Roubini interview on CNBC yesterday. Paul says it reminds him a little of this classic Monty Python skit where Marx and Lenin are asked about...
The latest Long Beach port data is out, and December statistics were about as crummy as expected. See the highlighted area below....
Aladdin Capital launches debtor-in-possession fund (hedgeweek) Why We're Probably in For a Long Recession (538.com) Providing social transparency to Wikipedia (Wikidashboard) Toxic banks or toxic assets? (Setser) World shipbuilding orders set to slump by 60% this year (LL) Rising...
The Geithner non-plan TARP 2 plan is now (mostly) out, and it is about as complex, dubious, over-engineered and sketchy as expected. The non-plan plan -- Tim G. calls it a framework, which is offensive to frameworks -- involves enough...
Good new overview paper out on how governments can cause depressions through ill-thought policy. Lots of historical frisson, especially given the current TARP 2/stimulus rancor, so I'll just turn to the paragraphs on the ongoing crisis: The fall in housing...
A live webcam shot this morning from the camera on top of Mount Laguna about 40 minutes east of here. I love the otherworldly snowy landscape, plus the weird black hole sun effect:...
Sort of unbelievable video clip from a U.K. rail crossing late last year, but it felt like there were financial markets parallels in here somewhere. [via DailyMail]...
Shrinking cargo volumes continue, with Europe/Asia down 12%, and Europe/Middle East off 37% (!) (Lloyd's List) Panasonic repatriating families to Japan over fears of looming influenza pandemic (Bloomberg) Will China have to choose between social stability and long-term growth?...
Fascinating how it became a big deal that Bill Gates released proto-malarial mosquitoes at the TED conference last week in Long Beach. I was sitting about 20 meters from the stage, so I got to see the whole mosquito thing...
This one will have to be anonymous, but it's from one of my favorite readers, a hedge fund manager who is thoroughly pissed at Tim Geithner for having "prevailed" on his bailout plan: Geithner, just three weeks into the most...
Here are two useful Depression-era factoids to keep in mind. The time it took various economic measures to return to 1929 levels: Real GDP: 8 years (1937) Real S&P: 27 years (1956)...
