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Monthly Archives: May 2007
Clinton Stands Up to US Patent Bullies
If the next president of the World Bank is once again to be an American, George W Bush could do no better than to nominate his predecessor, Bill Clinton, to the job. Clinton’s bold Aids-drug initiative is one reason why.
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Posted in development, intellectual property
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This is a Bull Market, Not a Bubble
What we’re in right now is a bull market, not a bubble. And although both bull markets and bubbles do come to an end, the chances of a disastrous crash are much lower in the former case than in the latter.
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Posted in economics
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Taxing the Tax-Exempt
It doesn’t make any sense to single out “debt-financed investing” for taxation in these days of extreme financial sophistication and embedded leverage.
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Posted in hedge funds, taxes
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Kemal Dervis for World Bank President!
Dervis would be great for many reasons, not least because he would be the first president of the World Bank not to be a US citizen.
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Posted in world bank
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Do Stock Prices Reflect Economic Reality?
It’s always possible to find an argument why stocks should be rising, and it’s always possible to find an argument why stocks should be falling. I’ll go with whichever argument accords with what the stock market is actually doing at the time.
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Zipcar insurance, part 3
A couple of months ago, I spoke to three Zipcar executives about the Zipcar insurance situation. I reported then: Zipcar told me that they’re going to make it much clearer on their website that their liability coverage is pretty weak; … Continue reading
Posted in Not economics
38 Comments
Citi’s $50 Billion Climate Pledge: Less Than Meets the Eye?
Citi has pledged to do things to help the environment. But it hasn’t pledged not to harm the environment even more.
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Posted in banking, climate change
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Thomson-Reuters: Fierce Competitor, or Cozy Duopolist?
The big question is whether Thomson-Reuters will be a fierce competitor to Bloomberg, or whether the two companies will settle down into a relatively cozy duopoly, with every incentive to raise prices and little incentive to cut them.
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Posted in Media
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Larry Summers vs Martin Wolf on Russia
Summers seems to be incapable of admitting that US policy towards Russia in the aftermath of the Cold War was actually disastrous.
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Posted in economics
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Bloomberg vs Spitzer?
Mike Bloomberg
is splashed all over the front page of the New York Post today, saying he’s
interested in running
for governor of New York when his tenure as mayor of New York City runs
out at the end of 2009.
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Posted in Politics
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Rupert Murdoch: White Knight, or Dark Destroyer?
There’s a good rule of thumb in any takeover battle, when looking at the target
company: if the company’s competitors oppose the deal, it’s probably a good
deal. Let me add another: if the company’s present owners start falling back
onto soaring rhetoric in defense of the status quo, it’s probably a good deal.
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Posted in Media, publishing
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Markets: Efficient, More or Less
Even if markets aren’t efficient, you’re not going to be able to profit from it.
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Posted in stocks
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One Question for Paul Wolfowitz
Why on earth haven’t you resigned already?
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Posted in defenestrations, world bank
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Charting for Business Geeks
Mathematica’s charting abilities.
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Posted in charts
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Lou Dobbs, Harmful Populist
Lou Dobbs is a harmful nutcase. But he has every right to be.
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Posted in Media
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Should Yahoo buy Dow Jones?
Yahoo is one of the few companies which could really revolutionize news on the internet, by making all of the WSJ’s content and archives freely accessible to all.
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Posted in Media
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In Favor of a Private Equity Income Tax
The arguments against applying income tax to the income of private-equity principals are weak indeed.
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Posted in private equity, taxes
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Wolfowitz’s Ouster: The End of the Bretton Woods Carve-Up?
This could be the single biggest silver lining to the disastrous Wolfowitz presidency: the end of the outmoded convention that the president of the World Bank is always an American and the managing director of the IMF is always a European.
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Posted in defenestrations, world bank
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ABN War Descends Into Fiasco
If ABN CEO Rijkman Groenink had only done from the beginning what was best for his shareholders, rather than trying every underhanded method in the books to ensure that his bank wasn’t broken up, we wouldn’t be where we are now.
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Posted in banking
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The Murdoch Charm Offensive Peters Out
There are limits to the effectiveness of Rupert Murdoch’s
charm offensive, it would seem. Judging by today’s news, indeed, the offensive
seems to have worked only on the journalists who were physically in the room
with him when he was putting his case.
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Posted in Media, publishing
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Microsoft-Yahoo: Move Along, Nothing Here
That Microsoft-Yahoo merger everybody cared so much about on Friday? By Sunday, it was already a non-story.
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Posted in M&A
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US Moves Towards Energy Efficient Light Bulbs
Great
news on the front page of the Saturday WSJ today: it looks very much as
though a nationwide energy-efficiency standard is going to come into force which
will essentially force every household in the country to move from incandescent
bulbs to light bulbs which are both much more environmentally friendly and,
over the medium term, much cheaper to run.
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Posted in climate change
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Who Regulates Wal-Mart’s Bank in Mexico?
American bank regulators have no interest in Wal-Mart’s new Mexican bank. Mexican bank regulators have no interest in the bank’s parent. This is a problem.
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Posted in banking
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The Murdoch Charm Offensive Hits New York
The Rupert Murdoch charm offensive hits the New York Times
today, which features a long
interview with the man himself. And give him credit: he says all the right
things.
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Posted in Media, publishing
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Envisioning a Canadian Reuters
Reuters is already a little boring: What difference would it make if it were Canadian, to boot?
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