Author Archives: Felix

Extra Credit, Sunday Edition

Posted on May 4, 2008 by Felix

Cable’s paper: Will Cablevision buy Newsday? Maybe: "They haven’t been able to agree with their board on more than one offer to take their company private; it’s almost as if they hope that a newspaper would be dead weight sufficient … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Friday Edition

Posted on May 2, 2008 by Felix

Posting’s going to be light today, when I resurface on Monday I’ll be blogging from Berlin. Earlier posts for you! But in the mean time: The New Value of Value Consciousness: For the first time in many years, everybody’s starting … Continue reading →

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The Healthy Side of the Media Business

Posted on May 2, 2008 by Felix

Yesterday, we learned that Grand Theft Auto IV sold a record 609,000 copies, generating more $48.4 million, in one day – and that was just in the UK. Today, it’s Viacom’s turn: Entertainment company Viacom Inc. reported a 33 percent … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Thursday Edition

Posted on May 1, 2008 by Felix

Sovereign wealth fund pushes back against EU regulation Is Personal Consumption Really Up? No Uptick Rule: Convenient Scapegoat? Related: A New Wave of Vilifying Short Sellers For the record: stupidest moment in policy ever? I find it hard to believe … Continue reading →

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Journalists at Conferences

Posted on May 1, 2008 by Felix

Mark Thoma gets a taste of what it’s like to be a journalist at a conference: Because I’m a blogger, they gave me a press pass. That’s kind of cool I guess, or so I thought at first, but it … Continue reading →

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Preventing Banks From Getting Too Big To Fail

Posted on May 1, 2008 by Felix

An intriguing idea from Alexander Campbell: Why should we let banks get "too big to fail?" Why not simply impose exposure limits – not capital requirements, which can be gamed, but hard limits, backed by sanctions – set as a … Continue reading →

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Why Local Government is Unrepresentative and Uncreative

Posted on May 1, 2008 by Felix

Many thanks to Harvard’s David Schleicher for letting me know about his wonderful new paper, "Why Is There No Partisan Competition in City Council Elections?". This isn’t (only) dry political science, it can also be read as a call for … Continue reading →

Posted in cities, Politics | 1 Comment

Steve Ballmer, Fence-Sitter

Posted on May 1, 2008 by Felix

The WSJ is reporting that Microsoft’s board, having met to decide what to do about the Yahoo bid, has decided, um, not to decide what to do about the Yahoo bid. Instead it’s punting the decision back to Steve Ballmer, … Continue reading →

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How a Weaker Dollar Can Mean a Bigger Trade Deficit

Posted on May 1, 2008 by Felix

Tim Worstall, after leaving a semi-cryptic comment on my blog yesterday, explains himself in a bit more detail today. I was confused about how US net exports could deteriorate even as the currency was weakening, but it turns out that … Continue reading →

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Brazil Finally Gets its Investment-Grade Credit Rating

Posted on April 30, 2008 by Felix

File under "about time too": Brazil has finally been upgraded to an investment-grade credit rating by S&P. The stock market hit a new record high in celebration, and the bonds tightened in even further: The yield to the 2015 call … Continue reading →

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The US Economy Reaches a Fork in the Road

Posted on April 30, 2008 by Felix

There’s been a lot of good stuff written on the GDP report, much of it on the slightly boring question of whether it means we’re in a recession. To me, the answer’s pretty simple: you have to be clear about … Continue reading →

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Why Some Countries Find it So Hard to Get Rich

Posted on April 30, 2008 by Felix

Nobel laureates are always a big draw at the Milken Conference, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that the room was full when Michael Spence moderated a panel on the relationship between growth and development featuring Myron Scholes. It … Continue reading →

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Quote of the Day: Frictionlessness

Posted on April 30, 2008 by Felix

Eric Feng of Hulu, on the digital innovation panel: Media is an impulse business. It’s foolish to expect that the user is going to climb mountains and cross hurdles to get to that content. This is very broadly applicable. Clearly … Continue reading →

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What the Internet Doesn’t Transform

Posted on April 30, 2008 by Felix

The PR panel in some ways encapsulated the weird nexus between corporate America and internet-era technology which has characterized a large part of the Milken Conference. Monday it was newspapers, Tuesday it was music, Wednesday it was PR: in each … Continue reading →

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The State of Catastrophe Bonds

Posted on April 30, 2008 by Felix

The panel on catastrophe bonds coincided with the release of a Milken Institute report on the topic. Catastrophe bonds make a huge amount of sense, in theory. The cost of Hurricane Katrina was over $65 billion in insured losses alone. … Continue reading →

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The State of the Music Industry

Posted on April 29, 2008 by Felix

The music panel featured Andy Lack, the chairman of Sony BMG, who somehow contrived to be reasonably upbeat about the recorded-music industry. It was his misfortune to be sat next to Quincy Jones, who lost no time in bursting his … Continue reading →

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The Unintended Consequences of Water Pricing

Posted on April 29, 2008 by Felix

I didn’t manage to catch all that much of the water panel, but I was struck by Israel’s Booky Oren, who said that 38 of the US states are coping with drought, but that if US agriculture used 50% reused … Continue reading →

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The State of Private Equity

Posted on April 29, 2008 by Felix

Apollo’s Leon Black (#6 on the latest private equity league table) kicked off an interesting discussion on the private equity panel this morning, when he said that the backlog of leveraged loans held by banks has come down from over … Continue reading →

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Political Hacks: The Backlash

Posted on April 29, 2008 by Felix

Macroeconomic discussions at the Milken Conference tend to feature a great deal of party-political Republican talking points. The lunch panel on Monday was moderated by Steve Forbes, the breakfast panel on Tuesday was moderated by Paul Gigot. And with people … Continue reading →

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Apple Datapoint of the Day

Posted on April 29, 2008 by Felix

This is entirely anecdotal, but there’s no doubt what the single most popular laptop is at the Milken Global Conference: the MacBook Air. The conference skews decidedly Republican, with a lot of very senior executives: we’re talking the conservative rich … Continue reading →

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The Importance of Price Signals in the MBS Market

Posted on April 29, 2008 by Felix

Brad DeLong replies to my post on whether hedge funds helped to stabilize the MBS market with a subtle but powerful argument. If I may attempt a paraphrase: hedge funds are marginal price-setters, and in financial markets a very large … Continue reading →

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Blogonomics: The Econobloggers Panel

Posted on April 29, 2008 by Felix

Can be found here. If you’re having trouble with the sound, it kicks in properly around the 8 minute mark. And yes, Yves Smith really is a woman.

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Regional Newspapers are Doomed

Posted on April 28, 2008 by Felix

The panel on the future of print media was really rather depressing, and not necessarily because the panelists were downbeat. The panel comprised four late-middle-aged business guys. They’re all reasonably bullish on how newspaper companies can transform themselves into web-era … Continue reading →

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When the WSJ Competes with the NYT

Posted on April 28, 2008 by Felix

David Carr’s column on the WSJ today is excellent: when he describes the behavior of the WSJ’s editors before and since Murdoch’s takeover as "a pattern of rolling complicity," he really couldn’t put it any better. But he goes further … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Monday Edition

Posted on April 28, 2008 by Felix

Deutsche Bank planning major capital increase: It could be as much as $27 billion. I’ll say that’s major. California & Co. Bids to Become Newest Bond Insurer: When states insure states. Mars-Wrigley? Buffett’s Sweet Deal: How "Warren Buffett sees a … Continue reading →

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