Author Archives: Felix

One Question for Paul Wolfowitz

Why on earth haven’t you resigned already?
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Charting for Business Geeks

Mathematica’s charting abilities.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Obstacles to Infrastructure Privatizations

Is infrastructure privatization more problematic than other debt-financed buyouts? Not really.
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Will Venezuela Really Default on its Bonds?

If Venezuela withdraws from the IMF, that could put the country into technical default on its bonds. But it’s not a major worry.
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Who Should Banks Be Worried About?

It’s not hedge funds, and it’s not private equity.
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In Praise of Infrastructure Privatization

The government gets more money than the asset is worth, and gets to spend it on the public; meanwhile, the private-sector is burdened with the liabilities for the next 100 years.
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Does Latin America Need More Investment?

In this age of abundant global liquidity, it’s interesting to consider that there’s an entire continent which is seemingly still desperate for more investment.
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Uruguay: A Quiet Latin Success Story

Carlos Steneri and the resurgence of Uruguay.
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The $100 Billion Toy

It’s one step forward, two steps back for ABN Amro CEO Rijkman Groenink.
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Costas Implodes

John Costas thought he could run a hedge fund. He was wrong.
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“They Look at Money as a Proxy for Aggression”

To get rich, you have to be aggressive. If you’re aggressive, you’ll be rich. So if you’re not rich, you can’t be aggressive. Ergo, to get rich, you have to be rich.
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Bancrofts: More Split Than They Might Seem

Dow Jones’s controlling shareholders only control the company if they’re united. And it’s not clear that they are.
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Rogoff, Wolfowitz, and Blue Ribbons

Le Monde admits its mistake, and Portfolio reveals the true extent of the DC blue-ribbon shortage.
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Moving a Carbon Tax Towards Cap-and-Trade

Still, Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki and Liberal Party leader Stephan Dion have an interesting idea which brings a carbon tax closer to a cap-and-trade system.
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