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Author Archives: Felix
The LBO Bubble Bursts: Not Necessarily a Bad Thing
Steve Schwarzman might
not be a happy bunny today, but I don’t think Warren Buffett
is losing any sleep.
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Posted in bonds and loans, stocks
1 Comment
MLM Schemes: A Very Bad Idea
Many MLM schemes can be extremely profitable, for their owners.
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Posted in personal finance
4 Comments
Vernon Smith to Work on Californian Public Policy
I can see why Smith and his team would jump
at the chance to leave their ivory tower and actually build something big in
the real world.
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Posted in economics
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Eyes on the Dow
The Dow is still well above 13,000, and in fact has never traded this high in its history except for a brief period earlier this month.
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Posted in stocks
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The Futility of Talking Growth
Matt Cooper wants the Democratic presidential candidates to
"talk
growth".
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Posted in Politics
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Adding Up Blackstone’s EOP Divestitures
I’m a little confused by Jennifer Forsyth’s WSJ
article today explaining how Blackstone’s Jonathan Gray
has sold a large chunk of Sam Zell’s EOP property portfolio
for $27 billion.
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Posted in private equity
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The Clothes of Thomas Barrack
A fondness for tasseled loafers.
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Posted in fashion
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Overcoming Bias in Crowdsourcing
Aaron Naparstek reports
that "WNYC’s Brian Lehrer wants to know how many
SUV’s there are on your block."
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Why Options Backdating is Wrong
Mark Stein has an excellent
overview today of exactly what is wrong with options backdating (and I’m
not just saying that ‘cos he’s my editor at Portfolio).
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Posted in pay
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Apple’s iPhone Revenues
Apple seems to have transcended the stock market
to become some kind of pop-cultural phenomenon – not as a technology company,
but as a stock.
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Posted in technology
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Apple’s Opening Weekend
We know that Hollywood films live and die on their opening-weekend sales. But
iPhones?
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Posted in technology
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The Reputation of Damien Hirst
Bess Levin today finds
a most
peculiar editorial in the International Herald Tribune, on one of my favorite
subjects, the intersection of art and money.
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Posted in art
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Banks Stuck With Unwanted Chrysler Debt
Suddenly, underwriting billions of dollars
in junk-rated debt looks less like a profit center and much more like a very
bad idea.
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Posted in bonds and loans
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Dodgy Counterfeit Statistics, Software Edition
$500 million: that’s a lot of money. How much software is that?
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Posted in intellectual property, statistics
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Mortgage Mess: It’s Not the Fault of Accounting Rules
There are many reasons why the mortgage market is looking ugly right now. But accounting rules in general, and FAS 140 in particular, are not among them.
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Posted in housing
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When Public Companies are Still Private Fiefs
When a private company is dominated by one all-powerful founder, the chances of it making a successful transition to becoming a publicly listed company are slim.
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Posted in stocks
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Why Hedge Fund Managers Don’t Blame Themselves For Losses
I don’t need to pick on Bear Stearns here: in fact I’m struggling to come
up with a single hedge-fund collapse which didn’t blame some kind of
"unprecedented" event.
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Posted in hedge funds
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Bookstaber Blogs: Why Hedge Fund Managers Make Less Than You Think
Rick Bookstaber is blogging!
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Posted in hedge funds
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Emerging Markets: Yields and Spreads
Alphaville’s Gwen Robinson has gotten
her hands on some research from CLSA’s Christopher Wood,
who foresees emerging-market debt yields even lower than the yields on US Treasury
bonds.
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Posted in bonds and loans, emerging markets, foreign exchange
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Bill Gross Joins the Billionaires-for-Tax-Hikes Club
Add billionaire Bill Gross, of Pimco, to the list of rich
men who want to raise taxes on the rich.
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Rail Privatization: Is Germany Doing it Right?
The planned IPO of Deutsche Bahn could go very well.
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Posted in privatization
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More Details Emerge on GMU Economics Upheaval
Midas Oracle has more
details on the news
that most of GMU’s Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science (ICES), led
by Nobel laureate Vernon Smith, is moving to California.
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Posted in economics
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Why It’s OK to Trust Ratings Agencies
Over the past decades, it’s very hard to find areas where the ratings agencies have been spectacularly wrong.
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Posted in bonds and loans
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GMU’s Other Star Professor Leaves
To lose one star economics professor to a minor-league competitor could be considered a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.
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Posted in economics
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The Barclays Catch-22
Dennis Berman talked to Barclays president Bob Diamond
today, and got this astonishing admission:
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