This lovely Friday’s end of week reading:
• Banking Systems Most Exposed to PIIGS Nations – 3,2 trillion USD (Asymptotix) see also Everything you need to know about the European debt crisis in one post (Washington Post)
• Volcker on the Unfinished Business Financial Reform: (NY Review of Books)
• Moral Hazard? Does MFGlobal Demise Show U.S. Willing to Let Bigger Firms Fail? (Bloomberg)
• Slowpoke Traders Seek to Gain on Speedsters (WSJ)
• The MF Global fun never stops:
…..-Masked Debt Risks (WSJ)
…..-As Regulators Pressed Changes, Corzine Pushed Back, and Won (DealBook)
• Dividend Swaps Signal No Slowdown as European Crisis Boils (Bloomberg)
• Groupon’s No Bargain (The Daily Beast)
• Artificial stupidity: Siri suffers a 5-hour outage (Fortune)
• Eejits: ‘Journalists all use Wikipedia’ (Poynter)
• The Big List of Behavioral Biases (Psy-Fi Blog)
What are you reading?
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Source : BusinessWeek
Category: Financial Press
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
Now here is some news:
http://www.breitbart.tv/60-minutes-ambushes-nancy-pelosi/
Your “Quote of the Day,” above.
“The world has always been betrayed, not by scoundrels, but by decent men with bad ideas” -Sydney J. H Harris.
Nope. It was clearly scoundrels.
Why are the PIIGS instituting austerity measures if the ratings agencies keep downgrading their bonds because those same austerity measures inhibit growth? The whole thing seems like a negative feedback loop to me.
all you actually need to know about the Europe in 200 words
from an email (with our respected buddy Kotoks testimonial)
my view (benefitting from David Kotok’s conference in stockholm) is that
1.this is a creditors problem
2. greece is small and has probably done all it can–a sideshow
3. the banks have bad debt and unwritten writedowns at leat 2-3 times likely actual sovereign writedowns
4. the fin markets are misbehaving because of this–and pressuring/ panicking the politicians
5. the banks understand this and want the pols pressured to get the panicked no haircuts Geithner style no bank left behind cover all losses deal for banks, in the guise of saving europe
6. this may take a little longer with more market pain
david you may not agree but thanks for the meeting access
and kotoks reply
Andrew. agree with this 100%. i’m proud of you.
Reading With Liberty And Justice For Some by Glenn Greenwald. The more I think about this two-tiered justice system of ours he so aptly analyzed, the more I realize that we won’t get back to the road to shared prosperity as long as things don’t change on that front.
After all, who would be stupid enough to deal with people who, not only cannot be made accountable, but can use the trappings of the law to screw you at will?
If you think I’m exaggerating, here’s a 2005 incident that is a harbinger of things to come.
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2005/09/68894?currentPage=all
Basically, Lucent cheated 3 inventors from untold sums of money by using State Secrets Privileges. The story is utterly repugnant and demonstrate clearly the incestuous relationship between mega-corporations and the government and their willingness (and glee) to screw over individuals and small businesses.
Make no mistake about it: This kind of stuff has happen and will happen with increasing frequency; the temptation to cheat and steal is overpowering when people know that no bad consequences will befall upon them.
What do you think the overall effect on the economy shall be if the financial and political elites are above the law? Economists claim this is a “social question” but economists are idiots anyway. Ever heard of an economy without a society?
Don’t miss this one:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/mike-bloombergs-marie-antoinette-moment-20111103
The title is fantastic, but the whole piece also great.
Mark Hulbert – “Looks and Smells Like a Bear Market Rally”
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/looks-and-smells-like-bear-market-rally-2011-11-04?siteid=nbch
He points out sentiment numbers are way too bullish and not representative of past bull market starts.
I’m lucky, my best bud had his fill of GS under Stephen Friedman, and was long gone by Corzine time. He’s got his own Bs to watch over now. Back then a million dollars a year was a lot of money.
Looks like RUT 2000 rally failing.
Making sure that regulations don’t prevent you from betting with costumers money.
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2011/11/wall-street-won-another-battle.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EconomistsView+%28Economist%27s+View+%28EconomistsView%29%29
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/i-do-not-think-that-word-means-what-you-think-it-means-hypocrisy-edition/
A chart of the Eurozone, who called whom what
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/europes-insult-diplomacy-11032011-gfx.html
Mayo.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203804204577016160354571908.html
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BR: Came home to his book arriving in the mail today!