Sorry for two AIG stories in succession; I just posted the other one when I saw the Bloomberg story just released, “Secret AIG Document Shows Goldman Sachs Minted Most Toxic CDOs.” I’m a bit puzzled as to what the fracas is about here. The formerly redacted Schedule A, the list of the CDOs that the […]
Read more...A very good article in The Nation by Sebastian Jones, “The Media-Lobbying Complex,” (hat tip Tom F) has gone peculiarly unnoticed in the blogosphere, which is a real shame. It does some good, old-fashioned reporting to identify 75 individuals who were regularly presented on TV as experts, and by implication independent, when in fact they […]
Read more...Team Obama’s answer to all negative feedback from the real world is to treat it as a communication/PR problem. Repackage the product, put the “new, improved” message out on all available frequencies, and move on to the next “public is a chump” maneuver. As we noted yesterday, the brand mavens have been assigned to Timothy […]
Read more...The evidence just keeps mounting that Team Obama sees its flagging poll ratings and increasing criticism of key incumbents as a mere communications/imaging problem. Its response is just to slap more lipstick on those pigs. Let’s look at a couple of particularly obvious plants. One is from the Washington Post by Dana Milbank, “Why Obama […]
Read more...Tonight provides yet another example of a blogger who brought an important stories to light not being credited by the MSM, in this case, a harsh preliminary ruling against JP Morgan in a dispute involving its client Televisa. I was going to post on Felix Salmon’s story, which discussed some extraordinarily dishonest conduct by JP […]
Read more...One of the things that has annoyed me is that the few times I’ve broken stories (this blog is mainly in the business of commentary and analysis, not reporting), I’ve had it picked up by the MSM and not been attributed as the party that broke the story. This kind of “bloggers as second class […]
Read more...The latest “Goldman [appears to be] behaving badly” incident reflects either uncommon boneheadedness (the only question is whether by an employee or the firm itself) or a very clever ruse to further discredit the reputation-challenged bank. Well-known British film director/producer/screenwriter Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, for instance) and actor Bill Nightly started a […]
Read more...One of the things that has been driving me crazy about MSM coverage of the latest public demands for tougher reforms of Wall Street is that they typically engage in subtle or not-so-subtle demonization of the critics. It is a blatant effort to put the shoe on the wrong foot. No, it isn’t that the […]
Read more...Time Magazine still gets first prize for shameless pandering to the interests of the elites (in my childhood, it was called the Establishment) with its designation of Bernanke as “Person of the Year” and the fawning accompanying story. But the FT has a piece tonight that is almost as bad, because unlike Time, the FT […]
Read more...Yves here. Several readers wrote, appalled by a Time Magazine article defending Timothy Geithner. Marshall Auerback took it upon himself to examine the quality of its reasoning. By Marshall Auerback, a fund manager and investment strategist who writes for New Deal 2.0. It was only a matter of time before someone emerged to defend Tim […]
Read more...Normally, I would not have paid much attention to the Wall Street Journal article today on Citigroup’s GTS, or Global Transactions Services, unit. But what was disturbing was that the normally-astute Columbia Journalism Review’s blog was taken in by a pretty questionable argument that was presented as fact in the piece. GTS is a big […]
Read more...Wow, has someone declared “Forced Out CEO Tries to Salvage His Reputation Month” when I wasn’t paying attention? Or was I just not on the distribution list? Last week, we had Sandy Weill telling us how the Frankenstein of the Citigroup he created was really a fine business; the only mistake he made was pushing […]
Read more...Dear readers, as much as the fact set in the headline sounds bad, we need to parse things a bit to calibrate properly. IMHO, the fact that the Fed used an attorney that also served Goldman is symptomatic of how concentrated the high end of finance has become and how incestuous all the relationships are […]
Read more...I should not be surprised to see that Robert Rubin, having been one of the single most destructive forces over the last two decades (Greenspan gets more heat because he was more visible, but Rubin has long had enormous sway) continues to have influence, not simply through his large network of well placed proteges (Larry […]
Read more...Reader Crocodile Chuck pointed out a set of articles at the New York Times that illustrates how skewed priorities in America have become. They also reveal how little public ire there is in the face of large-scale abuses that affect the average Joe. If corporate prerogatives cannot be reined in when personal safety is at […]
Read more...