There is a very critical page one story in the Wall Street Journal, “Bear CEO’s Handling of Crisis Raises Issues,”wrapped in the veneer of balanced reporting, on Bear Stern’s chief James Cayne. Let me be clear about one thing: I am in no position to judge whether the charges made against Cayne are accurate. But […]
Read more...One of my pet peeves is lousy research, and even worse is lousy-with-intent pseudo-research. The airwaves are filled with fake factoids crowding out real information. I was once tempted to write a post on what it takes to do good survey research, simply because surveys are widely cited and most people probably mistakenly think they […]
Read more...I do not want to step on the turf of fellow blogger Felix Salmon, who has established a new feature, the Ben Stein Watch, to commemorate the generally deranged and uncomfortably close to stream-of-consciousness output of the Sunday New York Times columnist who styles himself as “lawyer, writer, actor and economist.” Well, at least he […]
Read more...Even though I have said some unkind things about the Economist, once you get outside the world of politics, it is a very good guide to leading edge conventional wisdom. What do I mean by “leading edge conventional wisdom?” It is the sort of thinking dispensed by well regarded think tanks and private sector experts […]
Read more...Although riding herd on the Wall Street Journal is one of our favorite forms of recreation, we missed a couple of misstatements that were noticed by more alert eyes. Katie Porter at Credit Slips, caught two instances in two days in which the Journal mischaracterized bankruptcy practices, first pending legislation, and second, an unproven assertion […]
Read more...I assume that a high proportion of readers of this blog also follow Calculated Risk. I nevertheless wanted to comment on a particularly good post by Tanta on a favorite topic of mine, the efforts of the financial services industry to maintain that Suprimes Are Good For The Poor. Extensive news coverage of on-the-ropes borrowers […]
Read more...Hank Paulson must be very unhappy with the Wall Street Journal. While the newspaper briefly fell into line and issued one story that reported that the his pet project, the structured investment vehicle rescue plan, was getting traction, pretty much all its news coverage coverage has been skeptical, and its editorial comments have been downright […]
Read more...I’m pretty amazed at the tone and some of the content of the report on Bloomberg about the fact that Microsoft decided not to appeal the decision of Europe’s second highest court and worked out a settlement. Not only does Bloomberg seem not to appreciate that even Microsoft is subject to the rule of law, […]
Read more...Last Sunday, we made this observation about the SIV rescue plan, the so-called Master Liquidity Enhancement Conduit (MLEC), sponsored by Citigroup, JP Morgan, and Bank of America: Yesterday, we voiced doubts that this program could get done. Now that we understand that the primary goals is legerdemain, we think that it is likely that some […]
Read more...An excellent post, courtesy Mark Thoma at Economist’s View, from FactCheck.org, on why its efforts to correct the record are too often counterproductive. In essence, if ideas are falsely linked (say “Saddam Hussein” and “Al Queda”), further discussion preserves the false association. The entire post is very much worth reading; it’s a primer on how […]
Read more...It’s impossible to tell if this is an isolated event or the beginning of a trend, but a page one story in the Wall Street Journal today, “How London Created a Snarl In Global Markets,” labors to paint SIVs as a UK problem. The difficulty with this spin is that anyone with an operating brain […]
Read more...Apologies for having two Financial Times items in succession, but the FT all too frequently has the goods. In a new item that so far had not been picked up by the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times reports that a survey by the National Association of Directors found that two thirds of CEOs said […]
Read more...I must confess I don’t read the Economist as much as I used to. I suppose one factor was my belated recognition of how much to the right it had moved (it was evident to UK readers in the 1990s, but not being a close follower of British politics, I didn’t recognize it until the […]
Read more...“SOS to the SEC,” from the New York Post: Did Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke give away any secrets to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson when the two had an hour-long lunch on Aug. 16? And did Paulson share what he and Bernanke discussed with anyone in the hours immediately after that lunch?Those are two key […]
Read more...After denying the existence of rising disparities in income and wealth on it editorial pages, the Wall Street tells us that income inequality is indeed on the rise. It’s a refreshing change from January, when the Journal misrepresented a speech by New York Fed President Timothy Geithner in which he said that the growing concentration […]
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