Author Archives: Felix

Corporate Water Reporting: Weak

One expects companies in water-intensive industries such as mining to carefully audit their use of water. They don’t.
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The Necessity of the Closet

Why it’s overly simplistic to say that Lord Browne should never have been in the closet in the first place.
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Follow-ups: Chase, Rogoff

Chase responds to the security-breach video; Le Monde falls for Ken Rogoff’s fake Wolfowitz memo.
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Lord Browne: Victim of Homophobic Persecution

Browne is very much the victim here. The Daily Mail, which paid over $100,000 to Chevalier for his kiss-and-tell story, is the homophobic persecutor, using the flimsiest of excuses to out the former BP chief.
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Hedge Fund Leverage Falling

The UK’s FSA says that hedge-fund leverage is falling. But its survey doesn’t — can’t — tell the whole story.
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WSJ on the WSJ

Has Rupert held out a promise of editorial independence for the Wall Street Journal?
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The Tragedy of John Browne

Lord Browne was brought down at the intersection of two explosively dangerous institutions: the closet, on the one hand, and the UK legal system, on the other.
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News Corp-Dow Jones: Hope Yet For Rupert

The unions hate
it
. The owners are going to vote
against
it. The New York Observer says that it’s sunk.
So is there any hope for Rupert Murdoch in his bid to buy Dow
Jones?
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Does Economics Reduce Poverty?

The number of people living on less than a dollar a day is decreasing. Can economists claim any credit?
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Wolfowitz, Rogoff, and Intrade

Ken Rogoff laughs in Paul Wolfowitz’s face.
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Murdoch-Dow Jones Roundup

Instant reactions to the Dow Jones news.
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Murdoch bids for Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is the kind of property that newspapermen spend entire lifetimes dreaming about owning.
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Were There Accounting Problems at New Century?

The New York Times thinks there were. But the New York Times might not be right.
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How Not to Keep Your Job

On Charlie Wilson, Randall Tobias, Alan Clark, and Paul Wolfowitz.
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Real Estate Datapoints of the Day

New York’s office buildings are expensive. London’s are ridiculous.
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Department of Home Security

The enormous sums spent on “security” for CEOs.
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Hostile Bankers

Is Fred Goodwin the only banker to have launched a hostile takeover bid?
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Giving Muckraking a Good Name

Chase leaves its customers’ information – names, account numbers, social security numbers, loan applications, you name it – in the trash outside its Manhattan branches.
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In Which I Envy Brad DeLong’s Lunch

Brad DeLong has more interesting lunches than you do.
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Will a Carbon Tax Reduce Developing-Country Emissions?

Is Larry Summers’s Big Idea a carbon tax?
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David Lereah, Not Quite RIP

The NAR’s chief economist leaves his pulpit.
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Finance Ministry vs Central Bank

Agustin Carstens critizes his country’s central bank.
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Carlyle Group Tops Private Equity Table

Carlyle Group, KKR, Goldman Sachs, and Blackstone Group all raised $30 billion or so over the past five years.
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Ken Griffin vs John D Rockefeller

Griffin earns more than Rockefeller did, as a multiple of average earnings.
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BofA Threatens to Sue ABN for Three Gazillion Dollars

Add a $220 billion lawsuit to the ABN Amro craziness.
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