Author Archives: Felix

Art and the Profit Motive

Posted on August 3, 2008 by Felix

I can’t face the idea of writing another 3,000-word book review, so I’ll blog Sarah Thornton’s Seven Days in the Art World as I’m reading it. I haven’t even got past the introduction yet, but I’ve already found one sentence … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Sunday Edition

Posted on August 3, 2008 by Felix

Big Numbers, Made Smaller: "G.M. sold 2.29 million vehicles in the quarter. The losses came to $6,756 per vehicle." How To Get Twitter Wrong: It’s about reading, not writing. And 15 once we reach Alderaan…: The mathematics of distressed CDS … Continue reading →

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Blogonomics: The Flame Warriors

Posted on August 3, 2008 by Felix

Don’t mess with Jim Cramer. He went to Harvard, you know. You swear a whole lot, but sometime you may want to learn the proper usage of “than” and “then”. Your “even than” manages to make you look even less … Continue reading →

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Location, Location, Location

Posted on August 2, 2008 by Felix

BusinessWeek had a good idea this week: look at big metropolitan areas and see how the best-performing zip codes have compared to the worst-performing ones. Unfortunately, the final implementation is atrocious: it involves clicking laboriously through an interminable slide show, … Continue reading →

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More Savings Advice for Twentysomethings

Posted on August 2, 2008 by Felix

Bryan Keller has just written a very astute email taking issue with my retirement advice for twentysomethings, and asks if it doesn’t contradict slightly the points I made when I was promoting financial wellness. Keller says that financial wellness is … Continue reading →

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Retirement Advice for Twentysomethings

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Felix

A reader writes: As a "younger investor" myself looking for ways to retire with millions (we can all dream), I’ve been trying to start early and doing my research to figure out ways to gain an advantage in the long … Continue reading →

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Did Reg FD Have Unintended Consequences?

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Felix

Heidi Moore has an interesting interview with Vanderbilt professor Robert Whaley, who claims to have found some nasty unintended consequences to the SEC’s Regulation Fair Disclosure, which tried to ensure investors were on a level playing field with respect to … Continue reading →

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Unemployment Spikes

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Felix

5.7% unemployment? That’s ugly. The headline payrolls number of -51,000 jobs might be less bad than the market expected, especially since the fall in June was smaller than originally reported as well. But only the financial markets care about the … Continue reading →

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How is GM Still Alive?

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Felix

In the world of eye-popping earnings, GM has managed to beat even Exxon Mobil. Exxon made a profit of $11.7 billion in the second quarter; GM has manged to come out with a $15.5 billion loss, or $27.33 a share. … Continue reading →

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The Upside of Moral Hazard

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Felix

Bob Van Order, a former chief economist of Freddie Mac, has a long and sensible piece describing what Fannie and Freddie are good for, and examining the problems they’re currently facing. Along the way, he talks a bit about the … Continue reading →

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Privatizing Parking

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Felix

Kit Roane reckons it’ll be a long time before we see any significant infrastructure privatization in New York State: If Paterson wanted to turn the New York State Thruway over to private operators, he’d first have to pilot a bill … Continue reading →

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Hiring Alan Schwartz

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Felix

Dear John Thain is very upset that Alan Schwartz, the last CEO of Bear Stearns, might get a good job elsewhere, now that he’s decided not to stay at JP Morgan. Indeed, he says that offering a job to Schwartz … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Thursday Edition

Posted on July 31, 2008 by Felix

Scholastic puts the blame on "Do Not Call Registry": One of the lamest corporate excuses of all time. Shorts Crack the Code: This appeared in the NYT Business headlines for some reason; it’s not what you think, but it is … Continue reading →

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Lies, Damned Lies, and Blog Rankings

Posted on July 31, 2008 by Felix

I’m not a fan of lists, and I’m especially not a fan of top-blogs lists. But I’m kinda tickled by Wikio’s August blog ranking: Hey look, Market Movers is higher up than really great blogs like Wooster Collective and Stuff … Continue reading →

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SWFs vs Free Trade

Posted on July 31, 2008 by Felix

Matt Cooper says that sovereign wealth funds are "the opposite of free trade" and "anathema to a free-market economy". I don’t see why that should be the case: if anything, the funds are a natural consequence of free trade. If … Continue reading →

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Q2 GDP: Looking at the GDP Deflator

Posted on July 31, 2008 by Felix

Edward Harrison makes a good point about the unreliability of GDP numbers: the headline GDP number is equal to nominal GDP growth minus the GDP deflator — a measure of broad inflation. When the Q4 2007 GDP growth was revised … Continue reading →

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Carl Icahn Gets Bloggier

Posted on July 31, 2008 by Felix

It’s well known that one of the first things that happens to grown men after they get a blog is that they get SIWOTI disease. And Carl Icahn, it seems, is no exception. He still feels constrained from putting up … Continue reading →

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The Limits of GDP Statistics

Posted on July 31, 2008 by Felix

Zubin has the quarter-by-quarter GDP chart; he, like many others, is particularly taken that in the fourth quarter of 2007, the GDP figure fell below zero. But while the Q4 revision from +0.6% to -0.2% was big, the Q2 revision … Continue reading →

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The Problems With For-Profit Microlending

Posted on July 31, 2008 by Felix

After posting about the spat between Muhammad Yunus and Compartamos yesterday, I found a recent Economist editorial in favor of the Mexican for-profit lender. Since it’s one of the more lucid arguments in favor of the for-profit model, it’s worth … Continue reading →

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Towards the Command-and-Control Economy

Posted on July 31, 2008 by Felix

On a day when David Weidner jokingly proposes the "no-loss sale" rule (no selling a stock for a price lower than the last trade), Barry Ritholtz has anecdotal evidence that Wachovia, for one, is refusing to let its clients short … Continue reading →

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Free Zimbabwe’s Banks!

Posted on July 31, 2008 by Felix

As Zimbabwe knocks another ten (yes, ten) zeroes off its currency, the central bank governor, Gideon Gono, is optimistic that somehow this will do some good: so optimistic, in fact, that he’s reintroducing coins. It won’t work, of course. Something … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Wednesday Edition

Posted on July 30, 2008 by Felix

No News, Little Movement: Lots of noise, no signal in July’s financial markets. The Father of Wine Economics? "[Adam] Smith’s treatment of wine is not complete – there is no discussion of cork versus screw-cap, for example, and no treatment … Continue reading →

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Marion Maneker, Art-Market Blogger Extraordinaire

Posted on July 30, 2008 by Felix

What is it about blogs launched in May this year? Yesterday I lauded John Hempton of Bronte Capital; today I flicked through the archive of Art Market Monitor, and was blown away at the sophistication and insight of its blogger, … Continue reading →

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Muhammad Yunus vs Microlending “Loan Sharks”

Posted on July 30, 2008 by Felix

BusinessWeek’s Steve Hamm has a good overview of the latest dust-up in the world of microfinance, where industry Top Dog Muhammad Yunus has started lashing out at for-profit microlenders like Mexico’s Compartamos, accusing them of "moving into the same mental … Continue reading →

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Buying Berkshire

Posted on July 30, 2008 by Felix

I’m not really a stock-market kinda guy, but there’s a handful of individual stocks, foremost among them Apple, which seem to be able to transcend financial-asset status and be of interest to a much broader audience, including me. And one … Continue reading →

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