Author Archives: Felix

How Models Caused the Credit Crisis

Posted on July 7, 2008 by Felix

Ryan Chittum asks if we want to know what caused the global credit crisis, and suggests that if we do, we should "start here", with a 22-page report about subprime lender IndyMac from the Center for Responsible Lending and former … Continue reading →

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Chart of the Day: They are the Eggmen

Posted on July 7, 2008 by Felix

This is a chart of the S&P 500, priced in terms of eggs. Notes DeForest McDuff: With the price of eggs going up 75% since 2001, one share of the S&P 500 used to buy as much as 1200 eggs … Continue reading →

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Blogonomics: Gawker’s Latest Pay Cut

Posted on July 3, 2008 by Felix

Choire Sicha has the latest update on Gawker’s payroll, and it’s pretty ugly. Gawker writers get paid per pageview, remember, and that pay, as of the beginning of Q3, has fallen by 23%, from $6.50 to $5.00 per thousand pageviews. … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Thursday Edition

Posted on July 3, 2008 by Felix

The V-Word and Dick Grasso: "Vindication is not what just happened". Contented Streets: Why Copenhagen Is the World’s Happiest Capital Google must divulge YouTube log: 12 terabytes of information must be handed over to Viacom. I hope that Google can … Continue reading →

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Good Old News

Posted on July 3, 2008 by Felix

Clive Crook on Walt Mossberg: I never miss his column, even though I cannot remember a single occasion when it told me something I didn’t already know. (There must have been some; they just don’t spring to mind.) Do not … Continue reading →

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When Oil Strength Isn’t Dollar Weakness

Posted on July 3, 2008 by Felix

Barry Ritholtz asks: Here’s a question — at what point does ECB Central Bank Chief Trichet realize that every time the ECB hikes rates, it pummels the dollar and sends oil higher? The answer, it would seem, is "not today": … Continue reading →

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WSJ.com Will Go Free, Eventually

Posted on July 3, 2008 by Felix

Congratulations to wsj.com for posting impressive growth in both pageviews and unique visitors over the past year. Don’t pay too much attention to the numbers quoted: they’re "based on the company’s internal traffic numbers," and therefore not much use in … Continue reading →

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The Rule That Reduced Banks to a Quivering Blob of Matter

Posted on July 3, 2008 by Felix

Andrew Ross Sorkin’s article about Steve Schwarzman and FAS 157 is the gift that keeps on giving. First Barry Ritholtz took a swipe, then Jack Ciesielski attacked it forensically from a professional accountant’s point of view, and now Gari has … Continue reading →

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A Friendly Poaching

Posted on July 3, 2008 by Felix

We’ve seen the stories dozens of times: a second- or third-tier European bank gets the bright idea that it really needs to beef up its investment-banking business. But it can’t afford to buy an investment bank outright, so instead it … Continue reading →

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Making Money in the Airline Industry

Posted on July 3, 2008 by Felix

Eos? Dead. Maxjet? Dead. Silverjet? Dead. Clearly, anybody starting a business-class-only airline would be better taking classes in business. But astonishingly, it seems that the founders of the last airline standing in this market, L’Avion, are actually going to make … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Wednesday Edition

Posted on July 2, 2008 by Felix

S&P 500: Closed today at 1,261.52. The all-time high is 1,576.09, which puts official bear market territory at 1,260.87. Less than a point away! Personal economics in three easy pictures: "Our dollars earn very little interest sitting in an account … Continue reading →

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Cognitive Disconnect of the Day

Posted on July 2, 2008 by Felix

Susan Pulliam reports on hedge fund manager Thane Ritchie, son of options trader Joe Ritchie: Mr. Ritchie, who is tall, with blond hair, lives with his wife and three children in a modest, four-bedroom house. He says he doesn’t own … Continue reading →

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Blogonomics: The Subscription Model

Posted on July 2, 2008 by Felix

Since September, Jack Ciesielski’s Accounting Observer blog has been hidden behind a subscription firewall. That’s not a great way to get inbound links or traffic, obviously. But does it make sense for other reasons? I asked Jack why he’s hiding … Continue reading →

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Iceland’s Crunch

Posted on July 2, 2008 by Felix

You’ve got to feel for Iceland. Not only do you have an economy in recession and a plunging currency, but you also have to put up with columns from LSE professors using 20-20 hindsight to tell you that you were … Continue reading →

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Quote of the Day: Jamie Dimon

Posted on July 2, 2008 by Felix

Jamie Dimon’s in Aspen right now, and Charlie Rose asked him last night about the amount he paid for Bear Stearns. I love the metaphor Dimon used in response: Buying a house and buying a house on fire are two … Continue reading →

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The Cost of Commuting: 500GD/M

Posted on July 2, 2008 by Felix

SAR asks: Is there a simple formula that combines the price of gasoline, the one-way commute in miles, and per-hour wages that will let those in the exurbs (and soon, suburbs) figure out when it’s time to move back to … Continue reading →

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Jeffrey Epstein and the Private Banking Industry

Posted on July 2, 2008 by Felix

I’m glad to see that in between losing $57 million in Bear Stearns funds and spending 18 months in a Florida jail, Jeffrey Epstein managed to find the time to host the New York Times at his Caribbean island. As … Continue reading →

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Defragging the CDS Market

Posted on July 2, 2008 by Felix

You know when you’ve had a computer for a long time, and the hard drive is full of crap, and some tech wizard comes up with a way of defragging it or something, and the idea is that suddenly it’ll … Continue reading →

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Further Tales of Microhoo Incompetence

Posted on July 2, 2008 by Felix

The WSJ reports today not only that some kind of Microsoft-Yahoo deal might be on again, but also that: In mid-May — weeks after Microsoft withdrew its bid — Yahoo offered to sell itself to Microsoft for about $33 a … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Tuesday Edition

Posted on July 1, 2008 by Felix

The global food crisis: A toolkit for audacious leaders: Sensible ideas from Arvind Subramanian. The End of Naive Contrarianism: "While the investing pack is sometimes wrong, and big inflection points are often missed, the market’s investing pack is usually right." … Continue reading →

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Blogonomics: Market Manipulation

Posted on July 1, 2008 by Felix

For the past week, anybody going to this page at Seeking Alpha has found a blog entry that isn’t there. There are 42 comments, untouched. But the actual blog entry, we’re told, "has been removed, pending investigation of claims of … Continue reading →

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The Moody’s CPDO Scandal: Heads Begin to Roll

Posted on July 1, 2008 by Felix

The external review of the Moody’s CPDO scandal has now been concluded, and as a result Moody’s says that it "has initiated employee disciplinary proceedings". Such proceedings, it would seem, include firing the head of structured finance, Noel Kirnon. Moody’s … Continue reading →

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Improbable Predictions, Airport Security Edition

Posted on July 1, 2008 by Felix

Joe Sharkey talks to Kip Hawley, the director of the Transportation Security Administration, about new checkpoint-friendly laptop bags: Mr. Hawley said he did not expect that the new laptops would create undue confusion after their introduction, since security officers would … Continue reading →

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Infectious Inflation

Posted on July 1, 2008 by Felix

Barry Eichengreen, via Brad DeLong: There are now fifty countries in the world with inflation rates over 10%. It’s like the early 1930s, but just reverse the sign: back then everybody with their currency linked to the dollar imported deflation; … Continue reading →

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Private Equity in Hedge Funds: A Weird Combination

Posted on July 1, 2008 by Felix

File under "things which really don’t make a whole lot of sense": Lehman Brothers aims to raise $3 billion to $5 billion for a fund to buy strategic minority stakes in hedge-fund managers, according to sources at the bank. The … Continue reading →

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