The W$J is reporting that Rupert Murdoch now has enough votes lined up to buy Dow Jones & Co. This after News Corp. intimated yesterday that it was about to give up. What changed things was apparently the decision by those in charge of a Denver-based Bancroft family trust that controls 9.1% of Dow Jones [...]
From Bloomberg: The Canadian dollar fell for a fourth day as investors sold commodity-linked currencies on speculation U.S. subprime mortgage losses will slow the world’s largest economy. The Canadian currency was the second-worst performer among the 16 most actively traded currencies, trailing only Japan’s yen, while falling 0.3 percent to 93.70 U.S. cents. One U.S. [...]
A few weeks ago David Cay Johnston wrote a front-page NYT story (warning: available to Times Selectoids only) on how Blackstone had “devised a way for its partners to effectively avoid paying taxes on $3.7 billion, the bulk of what it raised last month from selling shares to the public.” I wrote a post at [...]
The W$J reports this morning that: Some prominent Democrats are beginning to rethink proposed tax increases on hedge-fund and private-equity managers’ earnings, after an aggressive pushback by industry lobbyists and arguments that the impact could extend far beyond Wall Street. … “When you first hear about it, it seems like, ‘Yes, this looks like an [...]
Economist and Columbia Business School Dean Glenn Hubbard was making the rounds of summer executive education classes this morning, giving his spiel on the state of the economy. I happened to be sitting in with a class full of Chinese CEOs. Here are the three scenarios for the immediate future that Hubbard laid out for [...]
The FT has a story about how corporate lobbying groups like the Business Roundtable and the Financial Services Forum aren’t lining up in support of their private equity brethren on the battle over how to tax private equity partners’ paychecks. And why ever would they? Corporate executives have to pay the full 35% income tax [...]
Business Week‘s Michael Mandel wrote Wednesday, in response to my article on “The End of Easy Money“: But here’s the problem–long rates are falling. The ten-year rate is now down to only 4.91% on the bloomberg machine outside my office (at roughly noon). And the latest mortgage rate for 15-year mortgages is 6.38%…that’s compared to [...]
From Patrick Goldstein’s excellent column in today’s LA Times: The conclusion is almost inescapable: Redstone’s imperial behavior is a drag on Viacom’s future. When I spoke to him last year after the Cruise affair, he had the air of an elderly grandfather, straining to keep up with the conversation. He now resembles one of those [...]
The stock market had an interesting day Thursday, with the Dow down 311 points. How interesting is that? Well, it is the second-biggest one day drop this year. But when you’ve got a number in the 13,000s, subtracting 311 just isn’t something to get too worked up about. Today’s 2.26% drop was just the 94th-biggest [...]
The Senate Finance Committee voted 20-1 this afternoon to send some “anti-pussyfooting legislation,” as John Kerry dubbed it, to the full Senate. I know because I was there for all the action at the lovely Dirksen Building. I also ate at the all-you-can-eat buffet in the basement and had a little bowl of Senate bean [...]
