Monthly Archives: June 2008

What Is Noncommercial Satellite Radio Programming?

Posted on June 16, 2008 by Felix

The XM-Sirius merger took another step towards actually happening today, when FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said he’d support it. The AP reports: The deal affects millions of subscribers who pay to hear music, news, sports and talk programming, largely free … Continue reading →

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JP Morgan and the Octagon

Posted on June 16, 2008 by Felix

When Chase Manhattan bought JP Morgan in 2000, it knew it was acquiring a valuable brand, but it also wanted to make its presence felt. So the name of the new bank became the unwieldy JP Morgan Chase, and Chase’s … Continue reading →

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Whither Municipal Bond Insurance?

Posted on June 16, 2008 by Felix

On Friday, I said that there’s a strong case to be made for the existence of municipal bond insurance, "since these bonds are generally bought by retail investors who can’t be expected to do sophisticated credit analysis". Commenter efranco then … Continue reading →

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Martin Sullivan Deathwatch: It’s All Over Now

Posted on June 15, 2008 by Felix

Liam Pleven, in the WSJ, seems almost sorry for AIG CEO Martin Sullivan, now he’s being fired: It’s not clear what a new chief executive, interim or permanent, can do to solve those problems amid ongoing upheaval in the mortgage … Continue reading →

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Chart of the Day: Oakland vs Berkeley Housing

Posted on June 15, 2008 by Felix

Mike Simonsen shows us what’s been happening over the past year to house prices in Oakland and Berkeley: He puts forward a number of theories why this might be the case, but I think there’s one overarching reason: Berkeley, like … Continue reading →

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WaMu’s Atrocious Mortgage Servicing

Posted on June 15, 2008 by Felix

You know that if you’re running into problems with your mortgage you should contact your servicer, right? Well, best hope your servicer isn’t WaMu. Over the past six months I have been disconnected more times than I can count while … Continue reading →

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How to stop websites from resizing your browser window in Firefox

Posted on June 15, 2008 by Felix

I wish I’d known this years ago… Point your brower to about:config. Where it says “Filter” at the top, type in “resize”. Or just scroll down to “dom.disable_window_move_resize”. It probably says “false”. Right-click on it, and select “toggle”. Now it … Continue reading →

Posted in Not economics | 1 Comment

Getting VIP Treatment

Posted on June 14, 2008 by Felix

Andrew Leonard is much less sympathetic to the politicians with VIP deals from Countrywide than I am. There’s still a fundamental issue here: the spectacle of powerful Washington insiders getting fondled by corporate interests is unseemly and undemocratic. He’s quite … Continue reading →

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The Economics and Politics of Trade

Posted on June 14, 2008 by Felix

Thanks to Dani Rodrik, we know the NYT fact-checked Roger Lowenstein’s article on free trade. Which is weird, because he’s 3,000 miles off when he says that "negotiators in Doha, Qatar, have been trying for years to draft a new … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Friday Edition

Posted on June 13, 2008 by Felix

Is dynamic pricing green? LIBOR vs NYFR: No visible difference. No Recession? Floyd Norris takes a stiletto to Edward Prescott. Microsoft is Doing Some Spinning: "While there are clearly issues at Yahoo requiring a change of leadership, Microsoft is, if … Continue reading →

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Richard McKenzie’s Popcorn

Posted on June 13, 2008 by Felix

UC Irvine professor Richard McKenzie has been getting quite a bit of press for his latest book, Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies, And Other Pricing Puzzles. McKenzie did a fair amount of real-world research on the popcorn … Continue reading →

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Schrodinger’s Option

Posted on June 13, 2008 by Felix

Have you ever wondered why hedge funds love to hire mathematics and physics PhDs? Maybe this post, and this follow-up, might help explain. It turns out that the Black-Scholes PDE (that’s partial differential equation, of course) is basically – um, … Continue reading →

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A New Housing ETF From Robert Shiller

Posted on June 13, 2008 by Felix

Up until now, Robert Shiller has been spectacularly unsuccessful in (a) finding ways for investors to short the housing market, and (b) designing ETFs. So, naturally, he’s now trying to do both at once! Matthew Hougan explains the idea – … Continue reading →

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Is There Hope Yet for MBIA?

Posted on June 13, 2008 by Felix

I got a phone call Thursday afternoon from MBIA spokesman Kevin Brown. He mainly wanted to clear up one thing about my blog this morning: MBIA Insurance Corp is not, technically, "going into run-off". It’s just not writing much in … Continue reading →

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Countrywide VIPs: In the Senate and Beyond

Posted on June 13, 2008 by Felix

Portfolio’s Daniel Golden has a potentially explosive story today: the Friends of Angelo, who received discounted VIP Countrywide loans, included a lot of very senior politicians, not just former Obama advisor James Johnson. Among them: Chris Dodd, Kent Conrad, Alphonso … Continue reading →

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Bud Can’t Block InBev With Modelo

Posted on June 13, 2008 by Felix

This is weird: the WSJ is running a story headlined "Without Modelo Aid, Bud Isn’t Likely to Parry InBev". The number of times that Grupo Modelo or any of its properties are mentioned in the story? Zero. Elsewhere, the WSJ … Continue reading →

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$200,000 a Year Makes You Rich

Posted on June 12, 2008 by Felix

Of the 116 million households in the United States, just 4 million are fortunate enough to earn more than $200,000 per year. This top 3.5% of the US population has a level of wealth and comfort that would be almost … Continue reading →

Posted in pay | 1 Comment

Extra Credit, Thursday Edition

Posted on June 12, 2008 by Felix

What Did Ken Lewis Say Last Night? About BofA’s dividend. Go ahead, study philosophy: That’s what I did! Call me old-fashioned, but I think a prenuptial agreement is far more romantic than flowers

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Airline Deregulation: Now Do It For Real

Posted on June 12, 2008 by Felix

Bob Crandall, who used to run American Airlines, thinks that airline deregulation has been a failure and wants to re-regulate the whole thing. But his argument comes from the point of view of airlines, not of passengers: Deregulation did bring … Continue reading →

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Short Sellers Don’t Burst Bubbles

Posted on June 12, 2008 by Felix

Bill Ackman appeared at the WSJ’s Deals and Dealmakers conference today. And Megan Barnett is quite right, he really did say this: You couldn’t short single-family home prices rising. That’s why there was a bubble in single-family home prices. And … Continue reading →

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Blogonomics: The Blog You Can’t Link To

Posted on June 12, 2008 by Felix

Megan McArdle finds a listing for what has to be one of the most depressing blogging gigs in the world: Dow Jones Newswires is seeking an editor to join its equity markets team and mine publishable scoops and intelligence from … Continue reading →

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The End of Lehman

Posted on June 12, 2008 by Felix

Why the defenestrations at Lehman? There’s one reason, and one reason only: the share price, which was meant to go up, instead went down. And frankly the only reason Fuld himself still has his job is that he is also … Continue reading →

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Why MBIA’s Change of Plans Makes Sense

Posted on June 12, 2008 by Felix

Yves Smith is very unhappy about the fact that MBIA isn’t throwing $1.1 billion of its shareholders’ money into the black hole that is its insurance subsidiary. She calls the decision "shameful" and "scandalous", but it seems simply sensible to … Continue reading →

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Pandit: Getting Serious

Posted on June 12, 2008 by Felix

Things are getting serious at Citigroup. Just check out how the WSJ’s reporting has changed from last week, when Citi was merely closing consumer credit outlets in Japan, to this week, when Citi is closing the Old Lane hedge funds … Continue reading →

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Fixing Libor, Redux

Posted on June 12, 2008 by Felix

The FT’s Lombard column asks a good question today: Why is Libor used as a basis for US loans in the first place? Dollar Libor started life three decades ago as a "eurodollar" index – meaning it was mostly used … Continue reading →

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