Author Archives: Felix

Alea, who broke the news that the CFTC’s proposed CDS futures were being tranformed into bankruptcy futures, has a provocative post up saying that this is actually a good thing. The CFTC was right to restrict the credit event to … Continue reading →

Richard Behar of Fox News has quite the scoop today: minutes of a World Bank board meeting (actually a Washington meeting of the board’s budget and “development-effectiveness” committees) seem to show a wholly dysfunctional relationship between the Bank’s board and … Continue reading →

One of the weirdest puzzles of the Great Moderation is that equity-market volatility has been going down, even as leverage has been going up. Ceteris paribus, of course, if you increase the amount of leverage in a company or a … Continue reading →

Are you still reading the EIU report on Ecuador from last Friday? Silly. Don’t believe for a second that anything in Ecuador can remain germane through a whole weekend. (For what it’s worth, the EIU has Ecuador on a CCC … Continue reading →

11:15am: OK, that’s it for the sovereign material, I’m done for the morning. Ed Parker threw away a comment as he was finishing up, saying that a US or Israeli bombing of Iran in 2007 would of course be bad … Continue reading →

William Hutchings of Financial News had a big piece on Friday examining the performance of the most expensive hedge funds: places which blow away the standard 2-and-20 structure with structures like Citadel’s 8.75-and-20, GAM/Caxton’s 4.5-and-30, or SAC’s eye-popping 0-and-50. Hutchings … Continue reading →

There seems to be some appetite for the recondite stuff here – so let me draw your attention to a press release with the scintillating title of "Belize 2015 Notes Amended". The ostensible subject of the press release is that … Continue reading →

Tyler Cowen is in a provocative mood today, in a post on adverse selection and health insurance: When I argue that adverse selection is not the key, I hear a common response: "*You* try getting insurance after you have been … Continue reading →

Floyd Norris unpacks the Q4 GDP numbers in the NYT, and concludes that Lower inflation and improved exports made a mediocre quarter appear much better than it was. Nouriel Roubini has much the same conclusion, but cites consumer spending as … Continue reading →

First, Sushil Wadhwani closed his flagship $1 billion global macro hedge fund, which lost money in 2006. Reports Edward Chancellor at Breaking Views: Wadhwani believed that the gaping US trade deficit would push down the value of the dollar against … Continue reading →

Robert Reich, divining no "intestinal fortitude" on the part of the Democrats for a carbon tax, reckons that a windfall tax on oil company earnings is the next best thing: The Dems should propose a temporary windfall profits tax on … Continue reading →

It’s not just Martin Hutchinson who looks at the IMF’s report on financing its running costs and sees a picture of obsolescence. The Economist, too, is getting in on the act: Mr Crockett’s team wants the fund to fund itself … Continue reading →

Dean Baker is an excellent blogger, and was the first person that I know of to pick up on the fact that President Bush’s health plan could decimate the social security benefits of the working poor: a very important, and … Continue reading →