Category Archives: Media watch

MBIA Lies in Attack on New York Times

Let’s start with some admissions: Gretchen Morgenson, one of two authors (the other is Vikas Bajaj) of a takedown piece on MBIA yesterday, has some detractors in the blogsphere because, frankly, her understanding of credit instruments leaves something to be desired. Her critics overlook her solid work on executive comp and corporate malfeasance. When she […]

Quelle Surprise! Wall Street Journal Downplays EU Calls for Tougher Rating Agency Regulation

I’ve had less cause of late to criticize the Wall Street Journal as the paper has made strides in its coverage of the credit markets. However, today’s paper has a story in which ideology appears to have compromised its reporting. Today Charlie McCreevy, EU internal markets commissioner, is to outline proposals for closer, tougher oversight […]

Weird Wall Street Journal Story on Bear’s Demise

It doesn’t take long to pick up on a news outlet’s quirks. For instance, Bloomberg tries to be out first with stories, yet also provide relevant market details for busy investors. They often compensate for their artlessness via juicy quotes. The New York Times, lacking the staff to report on business comprehensively, looks to leverage […]

Media Rorschach Test: Divergent Readings on the Saudis’ Wee Production Increase

The interpretations of the implications of the Riyadh-Washington pas de deux over oil production increases were surprisingly disparate, a seeming Rorschach test of sentiment about the US, Bush, and the Middle East. The papers that see themselves as US opinion leaders, namely the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, stressed how little the […]

What Has Happened to Gillian Tett?

A year ago, I found Gillian Tett, then the Financial Times’ capital markets editor, to be the single most useful financial reporter by a considerable margin. She gave insights into areas that were important but badly neglected elsewhere, such as CDOs, credit default swaps, SIVs, all well before they entered the mainstream lexicon. She was […]

Media, Congress Waking Up to Freddie and Fannie Default Risk

It’s amazing how a problem isn’t a problem until it’s presented as one on television or a respected print outlet. Never mind the fact that the cognoscenti have been worried about the possibility that the two big mortgage guarantors, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were too thinly capitalized relative to their massive balance sheets. Never […]

Quelle Surprise! National Association of Realtors Says Many Housing Markets Doing Well

A MarketWatch story “Home prices aren’t tanking everywhere,” has the all the earmarks of being a National Association of Realtors plant. Note that it’s even told from the perspective of supposedly well-meaning (as opposed to commission-motivated) brokers trying to educate clients that the press is wrong, things really aren’t that bad. Here’s the gist of […]

The Economist’s Cheery View of Credit Default Swaps

It’s remarkable how attending an industry love-fest can distort one’s perception. The Economist seems to have fallen hook, line, and sinker for International Swaps and Derivatives Association view that counterparty risk in the credit default swaps market isn’t all that big an issue. Its article, “Clearing the fog.” while mentioning the little problem that led […]

Paulson’s Cosmetic, Cynical Financial Regulation "Reform"

Why is it that the media feels compelled to take pronouncements from government officials more or less at face value? By now, they ought to know that if someone from the Bush Administration is moving his lips, odds are it’s a lie. Today’s object lesson is the so-called financial services regulatory reform plan announced by […]

Bloomberg Pronounces Hope for Subprimes Based on Single Deal

An article by John Berry at Bloomberg, “Fed Actions Defuse Subprime ARM Rate Reset Bomb,” is extraordinarily misleading, claiming that a Fed paper based on a single pool of MBS issued by New Century in 2006 shows that subprimes will work out much better than conventional wisdom says. Let’ s start with Berry: Many analysts […]

Bear: Did the Fed and Treasury Push Too Hard?

Andrew Ross Sorkin in the New York Times provides some important background on how the Bear deal wound up being retraded today. But he does his readers and the greater public a huge disservice by telling the story so as to flatter Wall Street. According to Sorkin, the $2 price for Bear was the Fed’s […]

Mirable Dictu! A Good Column by Ben Stein!

I nearly fell off my chair. Ben Stein’s column this week, “What McCain Could Do About Taxes,” is sensible and vastly more tightly written and argued than his previous work. No free association or gratuitous name-dropping, no leaps of logic, no wishful thinking. More shocking, not only does he take issue with the Republican party […]

Rating Agency Conflicts in Munis Coming Under Fire

In “States and Cities Start Rebelling on Bond Ratings,” the New York Times attempts to make the case that municipalities can lead a revolt against Wall Street: Does Wall Street underrate Main Street? A growing number of states and cities say yes. If they are right, billions of taxpayers’ dollars — money that could be […]

Ben Stein is Exxon Mobil

Ben Stein gives us another installment of his usual sloppy thinking. In his latest offering, “Exxon Mobil Needs a Hug,” he declares: After all, Big Oil is big us. And we need us. Since I don’t consider myself Big Oil, and I imagine most readers would object to being considered to be Big Oil, all […]

Surprise! It’s Rough Out There in the Job Market

The New York Times has an odd story today, “Is a Lean Economy Turning Mean?” which discusses how conditions for workers have become dire. New jobs are scarce, and many of the ones out there don’t pay as well as what employees got in previous roles. Hello, downward mobility. What makes the piece peculiar is […]