Archive for May 2010
If you don’t know what to do, ban short-selling
German chancellor Angela Merkel joined the ranks of Western politicians who blame short-sellers for market woes. On Wednesday, the German government acted unilaterally to impose a temporary ban on “naked” shorting – that is, selling shares and bonds that are not owned or borrowed. Specifically, the ban is on sovereign defaults swaps, eurozone government bonds and […]
Brooklyn Public Library
This past weekend I took my seven-year-old son to our local library, the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza. He wanted to go so that he could learn more about the French Revolution (having had his curiosity piqued by hearing about French support for the American Revolution). When we got there, he was mainly interested in the pictures showing the violent […]
Crash talk
There’s a lot of talk going around today about an imminent market crash. Get a load of what investor and renowned Dow Theory Letters author Richard Russell has to say (via Pragmatic Capitalism): Do your friends a favor. Tell them to “batten down the hatches” because there’s a HARD RAIN coming. Tell them to get […]
Will the US gain from Europe’s crisis?
Economist Tim Duy thinks so. Duy says the Eurozone’s problems will be a “net positive” for the US: Bottom Line: The European crisis, by keeping US interest rates in check and oil prices low, may do more to help the US recovery than hurt it. In the process, however, we would expect the flip side […]
Roubini: “new stage in the crisis”
Here is an interview with Nouriel Roubini, conducted by Jon Snow of Britain’s Channel 4 News. Roubini says: We’re at the new stage of the crisis. Initially the crisis was excessive debt and leverage of the private sector, houses and financial institutions. Now we’ve socialised many of the private losses, we’ve put them in the balance sheet of the governments. So […]
Why Greece matters
The economic turmoil in southern Europe shows that, far from going away, the global financial crisis has entered a dangerous new phase. You can read my spiked article in full here.
This week’s articles of note
“‘For trusting my daughter, I was treated as a criminal,'” spiked, by Nancy McDermott “The case for economic doom and gloom,” The New Republic, by John Judis “The war on working class culture,” Democracy Institute, by Patrick Basham and John Luik [need to scroll down] “Falling for the myth of Cleggmania,” Reason, by Brendan O’Neill […]
Who is Elena Kagan?
Yes, like you, I’ve read the profiles in the New York Times and Washington Post. But I’m still no wiser: I still don’t have a clue as to what she thinks. My question and concern is not because Kagan has never been a judge before; although judicial experience has been customary in recent decades, it’s […]
Unhappy meals: ban on fast-food toys is an attack on parental authority
This video tells the story of a move by Santa Clara county in California to ban restaurants from giving toys along with their fast-food meals. To many, the idea of a ban seems obviously ridiculous. What killjoys. Don’t the politicians have better things to do. But in 2008, it was the Santa Clara board that led the […]
Deal with Fannie and Freddie now
A Financial Times’ editorial announces that “financial reform is coming to the US”. But the Obama administration is trying to ensure that reform of the so-called “toxic twins” – the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – doesn’t come to the US anytime soon. Fannie and Freddie were taken under federal government “conservatorship” in […]
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | |||||
| 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
| 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
| 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| 31 | ||||||