Worthwhile Reading
Not quite a full linkfest, but some very intriguing articles:
Politics & Elections
• Obama Grabs Headlines – Newspaper front pages from around the globe, November 5, 2008
• Great expectations (The Economist)
• Obama Is Seen Inheriting Worst U.S. Recession Since Reagan Era (Bloomberg)
Markets / Trading:
• Wall Street Lays Another Egg by NIALL FERGUSON (Vanity Fair)
• The Obama Market: What’s Hot, What’s Not (Barrons)
Sectors likely to be helped — or hurt — under the new administration.• How the Thundering Herd Faltered and Fell (NYT)
• WORST TWO DAY DECLINE SINCE THE ‘87 CRASH (Bespoke)
• Obama May Inherit Bull Market After $6 Trillion Loss (Bloomberg)
• Bonds Priced for Depression Beat Stocks (Barrons)
• Prof Jeremy Siegel’s Strange Claim: “Stocks Are Dirt Cheap” (Clusterstock)
• Boone Pickens Almost Entirely in Cash; Fidelity Job Cuts; Legg Mason Stock Craters
Economy:
• Unemployment Hits 14-Year High (NPR)
• China Announces $586 Billion Stimulus Package (WSJ)
• Retailers Report a Sales Collapse (NYT)
• Non Farm Payroll: -651,000 over the past 3 months
• Goldman Forecasts Deepest Recession Since Reagan Era (Bloomberg)
• Restaurant Performance Index Falls to Record Low (Restaurants and Institutions)
• Once Sizzling, China’s Economy Shows Rapid Signs of Fizzling (NYT)
• Canada seeing huge increase in bankruptcies (National Post)
• Six Questions for Eric Janszen on the Economic Collapse (Harpers)
Federal Reserve
• Obama’s Choice for Tres Secy: Tim Geithner (The New Republic)
• Bloomberg Sues Fed to Force Disclosure of Collateral (Bloomberg)
• Zero Rate World May Lie Ahead as King, Trichet Cut (Bloomberg)
• Blast from the past: Man of the Year: High-Wire Artist Alan Greenspan (NYT)
Derivatives
• The credit-default swap needs reform, not abolition (The Economist)
• Credit Swap Disclosure Obscures True Financial Risk (Bloomberg)
• AIG in talks with Fed over new bail-out (FT)
• Idiot of the day: Former FDIC Chief: Fair Value Caused the Crisis (CFO.com)
• A Requiem for Glass-Steagall (BUSINESSWEEK: NOVEMBER 15, 1999)
• The Formula That Shook the World (Nova)
Technology:
• A New Dawn: Moving decisively on climate change (WSJ)
• U.S. military can regrow human limbs, organs (Canada.com)
• Chinese hack into White House network (FT)
• The Sun: Photo Journal
Video:
November 9th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
I shall keep beating the drum. Note that the list of the worst two-day crashes is topped by the 1929 declines which occured as the market hit it’s 1929 bottom. It then rallied 50% starting somewhere around 11/15/29.
November 9th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Has the quantity of comments decreased during the transition to the new layout? It’s awfully quiet in here now. Excuse the slightly off topic comment.
Barry, we need a “preview” button for our posts. I don’t know if we can use HTML like we could on typepad, but it’s seldom that I close all the tags correctly first time around. Thanks.
November 9th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
mysterious eggs:
Barry seems to be posting more, so there are more topics that don’t get many comments. Some still get quite a few.
As to html, I tried it and it works. Also, if you simply post a URL, Wordpress recognizes it as such and creates a link.
I have also requested a preview mode, since I make lots of typos, not only in creating html, but just typing text. The preview mode allows me to catch more.
November 9th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
That Barron’s article is kind of a head scratcher. If the bond markets were priced for depression, the yield curve would be flat; not approaching the seventy-five degree angle it is currently at between the 2s and 10s. Yeah, corporate spreads are high, but that seems like a function of the financial debacle’s ripple effects through the system. The markets have been to frozen to adjust to the changing landscape: just because Altria bonds have the same rating, coupon and duration as some now-defunct bank or run-by-incompetents automaker doesn’t mean people are going to stop buying Kraft and Koolaid.
If you would like to sell me your 5 year RJR bonds yielding 9%, or your 3 year Qwest bonds with a YTM of nearly 12%, you may happily shout “sold to you” and ring the register as I gladly take them off your hands.
November 9th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
BR,
these link pools are cool. to me, feel free to post more of them. certainly, from the POV of: there’s a lot going on, on this little Marble, not everything needs to be, or can be, commented on, though, certainly, we all need to read more–no, I’m not saying your overall content is lacking ; )
although, as others have mentioned–like ‘essays& other effluvia’–will the ‘other’ info from .typepad be migrating to ritholtz.com?
–
Byno,
do you have a take on the upcoming G-20/”BW II” talks?
November 9th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
The real Messiah begins to surface. You haven’t seen anything yet.
The Messiah during his first press conference has already managed to insult Nancy Reagan, “I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any séances”
It illustrates that the Messiah has no class. Bush’s first comments and actions were classy, and McCain’s speech was classy too, but Messiah’s first speech … insults the ailing widow of a popular president. Oh, the Messiah is a unifier all right…
Did you also notice how the Messiah was always glancing at his index cards? Ooops no teleprompter, what a joke, you will soon learn what a true weak President is, and how destructive he is for the USA. (Carter will look like an angel in comparison to Obama)
In addition, not only the Messiah has insulted a 90 years old former first lady but also the English language, “Yes. We’re goin’ go to the White House on Monday. President Bush and Mrs. Bush have graciously invited Michelle and *I* to visit the White House”. What is this? Ebonics or a language they teach “evenly tanned” affirmative action recipients in Harvard or Columbia? My English is a third language (I speak five languages and Ebonics is not one of them), but if I were the Messiah, I would say something like this, President Bush and Mrs. Bush have graciously invited Michelle and *me* to visit the White House on Monday.
God save us from the imbeciles (aka the democrats)! (Borrowing this statement and “evenly tanned” from Silvio Berlusconi)
November 9th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Jurgen:
At least he spoke in complete sentences that made sense even if the grammar is not perfect. Took questions without embarrassing himself and us.
Most thinking people probably enjoyed the Nancy Reagan joke. Not fun learning that the woman really running the country was relying on an astrologer.
I think we have already learned what a true weak president is like. We had the past eight years to learn it.
I guess some of us have our Aryan hackles up. A partly black president before a German one.
November 9th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Bring in the ass-clowns. The new president-elect certainly ain’t (a little “ebonics” for you) perfect but the man hasn’t even officially taken office yet. And he certainly can’t be any worse than the clueless ideologues who have arguably destroyed our markets, economy and country over the past eight years. Good grief. Please do a get a friggin’ clue, will ya?
November 10th, 2008 at 12:17 am
Change is Coming…
Goodbye Drilling, Hello $10 Gas!
Obama to Use Executive Power To Halt Drilling
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122624781089211609.html
November 10th, 2008 at 1:17 am
Mike in Nola, “A partly black president before a German one.”
Unfortunately, the only Obama’s achievement is his skin color. Would Obama be considered for the presidency if he was not black? Of course not, I am sure others will argue otherwise, but if he was not “tanned”, he would not attend Harvard Law School, and definitely he would not be the President. It is sad that for so many people like Mike in Nola, Obama’s skin color takes precedence over his lack of substantive merits and experience.
______________________________________________________________________________
@ Mannwich and Mike in Nola
Do you want a bet that within 6-12 months Messiah’s approval rate will be at historically low levels?
Whom will the democrats blame for their problems and irresponsibility when Bush is no longer around? Whom will they blame when the Messiah will not deliver on his empty and unrealistic promises? (High expectations and unrealistic promises is a sure set up for major disappointments)
Just curious… Whom will they blame?
November 10th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Jurgen:
If you have read my earlier posts, you know that Obama was not my first choice and I have already said that he probably could not have beaten Hillary w/o the near unanimous black vote that only required him to draw 25-30% of white voters in the Southern and border states to win. Being from New Orleans, I’ve seen this in mayoral elections for the past 25 years.
Likewise, he likely wouldn’t have gotten into Harvard Law School without his race (although he did work between college and law school), but smart people sometimes get favored by affirmative action and he’s certainly shown he’s got a lot on the ball by getting elected President of the Law Review, which is a pretty big deal in law school. And, there’s the matter of getting elected POTUS. As to being ungracious, you must not have watched his acceptance speech; he matched McCain’s graciousness as much as a victor can.
As to the future, I am willing to suspend judgment. He may be like Carter, well meaning, but not smooth or a good politician. He cannot be as bad as Bush, who squandered our position as sole superpower built up over the past half century. He may be like Roosevelt, who was not a particularly good administrator, but was a gifted politician and leader who managed to become an icon even though he did not defeat the Great Depression.He may be like Reagan, who was not competent, but could make a speech even though he left us saddled with debts. Or, he may be like Clinton, who was both competent and able to frustrate the haters by remaining popular while they seethed.
We shall see.
November 10th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Yesterdays Veterans Parade in a nearby town was started with a canon blast by a Confederate squad.
3 miles to the southeast of this Illinois town is a 1800s historic stop over bed and breakfest for Abraham Lincoln.
I was to say … disappointed in this pageantry 4 days post this historic election.
Barack elequently expressed how he hopes to draw in the other 46% of the American population into Unity. I think that is a tall order.
Birds of feather fighting for their survival. Thanks gwb, NOT. Thanks Labor for Things exchange system, NOT.
November 10th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Jurgen: It’s going to take several years to fix the trail of tears that GWB and the GOP left behind in their wake. The Messiah him/herself (no, not O) could take over as president and still need at least two terms to get us on the right track again, so please just stop it with this bitter nonsense. It’s not helpful or even at all enlightened. Makes you look like another silly, bitter, unserious, intellectually dishonest ideologue (the same ones that savaged/tried to de-legitimize Clinton for 8 long years to no avail).