Archive for 'guest bloggers' Category
Frustrated of France
28 August 2010This a copy of a Comment I put on a Baseline Scenario blog today where James Kwak describes his trials and tribulations with Verizon when trying to move his phone and DSL service from one house to another. http://baselinescenario.com/2010/08/18/more-telecom-hell You should consider yourself lucky that you don’t have to deal with Orange and France Telecom [...]
Devaluing the yuan
25 March 2010Continuing with Thursday’s China theme, SocGen’s Albert Edwards has been looking at the emergence of a trade deficit in the People’s Republic and the implications. The backstory here is the recent, surprise announcement from Premier Wen Jiabao and Commerce Secretary Chen Deming that China would record a trade deficit in March – the first since [...]
Citi plans crisis derivatives
8 February 2010Credit specialists at Citi are considering launching the first derivatives intended to pay out in the event of a financial crisis. The firm has drawn up plans for a tradable liquidity index, known as the CLX, on which products could be structured that allow buyers to hedge a spike in funding costs. “This is basically [...]
Obama eats Republicans’ lunch
30 January 2010For an hour on live television, Obama danced around the Republicans, landing blows and coming out ahead on points When the Republicans invited President Obama to address their congressional House delegation in Baltimore today, they probably had no idea how badly it would turn out for them. Presumably the Republicans thought they’d get a chance to [...]
Volcker Rules OK?
23 January 2010Here’s Charles Dumas of Lombard Street Research with an aggressively “pro” take on the Volcker rule… Paul Murphy, FT Alphaville Obama-Volcker on target, avoid Glass-Steagall The furore over bankers’ bonuses illustrates one aspect of current financial market conduct that has wide implications: the casual slippage back to “normalcy”, interpreted as business-as-usual 2007-style. It seems clear [...]
Dynamic Paywall Icon
21 January 2010Will the blogosphere soon need a dynamic paywall icon that appears automatically next to any URL to tell the browser that he can access the story because he is a subscriber or not? Perhaps even indicating how many views are left from his “free quota”. For example, if you use Seesmic to view Twitter feeds [...]
Will Amazon Ever Reveal Usable Data About the Kindle?
8 January 2010From SNS guest blogger and publishing guru Thad McIlroy: OK, I’m obsessed. I just checked and I’ve written over 30 blog entries in the last few years about Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, for what I consider empty, meaningless hype around the Kindle and eBooks generally. Where is Peter Finch’s Howard Beale when we need him: [...]
Our White Collar Nation
5 January 2010When I first read this article from The Stone I was amused by its simplistic view of the world. Clicking on the “trenchant observations” link below partly confirmed my assumptions:-) However, I guess many would agree with the general theme. So, other than Wall Street kleptomania and a dysfunctional government, what went wrong? Is the [...]
Class Warfare American Style
5 January 2010Jesse (aka Arthur Cutten) on learning of the recent GSE bailouts from Matt Taibbi on the criminal nature of the US financial services community. Hilarious rant, close to the truth or has Arthur spent too much time in a less class divided Europe? Extract: For me the basic dynamic of the mortgage bubble is some [...]
A few thoughts on taxing Savings, Consumption or Gambling?
31 December 2009Savers are taxed by government policies to assist banks to repair their balance sheets. This always happens after a financial crisis when most banks are bust but governments conspire to hide the facts. Prudent savers get hosed by low interest rates, especially retirees. Be in no doubt that this is a deliberate form of stealth [...]