Author Archives: Felix

Ben Stein Watch: May 11, 2008

Posted on May 11, 2008 by Felix

Ben Stein admits this week to having a "febrile brain". Does that mean he has meningitis? I’m not sure that would necessarily explain much, but maybe it helps us a little way along the road to understanding why the NYT … Continue reading →

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Taxing the Harvard Endowment

Posted on May 10, 2008 by Felix

John Hechinger reports that lawmakers in Massachussetts are considering a 2.5% tax on the portion of college endowments that exceed $1 billion. Such a tax would raise $1.4 billion a year, with 60% of it coming from Harvard. Greg Mankiw … Continue reading →

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Spectator Business

Posted on May 10, 2008 by Felix

A quick plug for Specator Business, a brand-new magazine that’s just launched in the UK. Its blog, Trading Floor, features the very smart Tim Worstall, and the magazine proper is full of smart columns from the like of my old … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Friday Edition

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Felix

Vikram Pandit, Citigroup’s Chess Master: Has shunted Alberto Verme all the way off to Dubai. Repo home tours: Should you jump in? Auto Erotic: Dan Neil on the Bugatti Veyron.

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The Healthiest Part of the Financial-Services World

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Felix

Bloomberg has a big article up on the slightly sleazy world of inter-dealer brokers. It’s a world I know a little about, since I used to have an inter-dealer broker as my roommate. This chap was eminently qualified for the … Continue reading →

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Blogonomics: Why Media Companies Will Buy Blogs

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Felix

Jerry Abejo has revisited the idea of blog aquisitions, and doesn’t really seem to get it. He’s not only way off the mark factually (Gawker Media gets over 200 million pageviews a month, not 30 million), but he also seems … Continue reading →

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Citibank Germany: For the Chop?

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Felix

Apparently Citigroup is considering selling off as much as $400 billion in "non-core assets", including its retail banking operations in Germany. Is Citibank Germany really non-core? It would seem so. I bank with Citi in the US, and on Wednesday … Continue reading →

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Why is Insider Trading Illegal?

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Felix

The meme of the day, as admirably summed up by Paul Murphy, is the question of why exactly insider trading is illegal, and whether it should be. I seem to recall a trenchant column by Holman Jenkins in the WSJ … Continue reading →

Posted in law, stocks | 1 Comment

Why Shutter When You Can Sell?

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Felix

Warner Brothers is closing down its two art-house production companies, Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures, with the loss of about 70 jobs. The idea, according to Warner’s Alan Horn, is that "between both New Line and main Warner’s, we had … Continue reading →

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How the Credit Crunch Hits NYC Renters

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Felix

You thought New York City landlords were notoriously greedy and aggressive? Wait till you see what private-equity companies get up to when they enter the space. Gretchen Morgenson reports: In the last four years, developers backed by private equity firms … Continue reading →

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When Artists Go Corporate

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Felix

Time Out New York declared last year that the Kalahari, in Harlem, was the ugliest condo in the city (no mean feat that). "This is reminiscent of the Kalahari Desert," they said. "Municipal buildings in the Kalahari Desert, that is." … Continue reading →

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Neeleman Realizes He Is a Day-to-Day Operator After All

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Felix

Do you remember David Neeleman’s ouster from JetBlue last year? He seemed happy to put a positive spin on it then: Neeleman, JetBlue’s largest individual investor, will be non-executive chairman. "I’m not a day-to-day operator," Neeleman, 47, said today in … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Thursday Edition

Posted on May 8, 2008 by Felix

Raiders of the Lost Arc Elasticity, Part I, Part II, Part III: Robert Jensen finds the elusive Giffen good, with important results. "When we subsidized the price of rice and wheat, people consumed less of them, not more. And in … Continue reading →

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I Guess This Means AIG Stock Will Rise 10% Tomorrow

Posted on May 8, 2008 by Felix

I’m with Megan Barnett on this one: the time to announce a 10% increase in your dividend is not when you’re simultaneously annoucing a $7.8 billion loss in a single quarter. Yes, $7.8 billion. I know we’re all getting inured … Continue reading →

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Blogonomics: Judging Bloggers

Posted on May 8, 2008 by Felix

I’m enjoying this conversation with Dean Rotbart far too much to stop now, even though I suspect it’s of interest only to a handful of my readers. But I’m a blogger! So on I go; you’re more than welcome to … Continue reading →

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Droppe the CEO!

Posted on May 8, 2008 by Felix

Yes, there really is a company called Charming Shoppes, and it’s in the middle of a full-blown proxy war right now; it’s even managed to delay its annual meeting at the very last second because (ahem) it was having difficulty … Continue reading →

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Is UBS Guaranteeing BlackRock’s Returns?

Posted on May 8, 2008 by Felix

Michael de la Merced got a timely interview with BlackRock’s Laurence Fink this week, and the resulting story is well worth reading. But one question is not cleared up: what does this mean, exactly, on the subject of the $15 … Continue reading →

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Are More Patents Really a Good Thing?

Posted on May 8, 2008 by Felix

Malcom Gladwell’s piece in the latest New Yorker, on Nathan Myhrvold and his company, Intellectual Ventures, is a rollicking good read. But once you’ve read it, it’s worth sobering yourself down a bit with John Gapper. For while Myhrvold and … Continue reading →

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Tariff Barriers in Practice

Posted on May 8, 2008 by Felix

Apologies for the late start today, that normallly shouldn’t be a problem for someone six hours ahead of New York. But you’ve never really understood what tariff barriers are until you’ve stood in a German customs office for five hours … Continue reading →

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ExpressJet: Probably Toast

Posted on May 7, 2008 by Felix

Most of the time I have relatively little sympathy for troubled companies. But sometimes they just seem to run into so many body blows simultaneously that you’ve just got to wince a little. And ExpressJet is one of those cases. … Continue reading →

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Bear Fight

Posted on May 7, 2008 by Felix

Landon Thomas has a wonderful piece, full of color, on the spat between Jimmy Cayne and Ace Greenberg. Boy can these multimillionaires get petty: Told that Mr. Cayne, with whom he worked for four decades, had lost much of his … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Wednesday Edition

Posted on May 7, 2008 by Felix

Spreads and paradoxical liquidity: More from Steve Waldman. Pain and inequality: "The average pain rating is twice as high for those in households with annual incomes below $30,000 as for those in households with incomes above $100,000." Tropicana files for … Continue reading →

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Blogonomics: Econoblog Awards

Posted on May 7, 2008 by Felix

Dean Rotbart is full of bright ideas. Here’s the latest, in a comment on this blog: Let’s establish a non-profit, volunteer board of people to recommend standards for financial bloggers, dealing with issues such as conflicts-of-interest, disclosure, and accountability. Second, … Continue reading →

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Citi Never Sleeps

Posted on May 7, 2008 by Felix

Yes, that is the Citi’s Official everything-old-is-new-again slogan. Here’s a real ad (you’ll have to watch a short ad in order to watch the longer ad for Citi, because, um, this is the internet) followed by a fake ad from … Continue reading →

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When States Pass Laws the Banks Don’t Like

Posted on May 7, 2008 by Felix

In many countries there aren’t any long-term mortgages, either because local law makes it difficult to foreclose on a house, or else because of the very real risk that local laws will change and make it difficult to foreclose on … Continue reading →

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