Archive for 'guest bloggers' Category
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 a [...]
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 grill the [...]
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 to us [...]
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 it [...]
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: “I’m [...]
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 Ivy League [...]
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 [...]
The bankers who wouldn’t say sorry: a cautionary tale
29 December 2009There was a time when naughty boys
Would have to forfeit all their toys,
And go to bed without their food
To force a new, repentant mood
Upon the wretched little toads,
Who flouted our great social codes.
But there’s a price we all will pay If politicians won’t display A little courage and crack down Upon these unsafe, grasping clowns: [...]
Pricing a CDO – Not only Bad Math, Bad Computation too
27 December 2009from: The Economic Populist, by Robert Oak, Sat, 12/26/2009
A working paper, Computational complexity and informational asymmetry in financial products, Sanjeev Arora, Boaz Barak, Markus Brunnermeier, Rong Ge. sheds some light on the complex mathematical models upon which credit default obligations and other derivatives are based.
What Arora et al. prove is not only are many derivative mathematical models impossible [...]