Using RFID, one firm makes sure that sponges don’t go home with surgical patients
Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman’s wildly over-the-top response to Joe Nocera’s critical column in last Saturday’s NYT (Felix has an excellent summary of the back and forth) got me thinking about the strange workings of the minds of the lavishly compensated. Ackman’s tone reminded me a lot of the air of aggrievement that pervades his [...]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel seems to have rocked the global financial boat with her intimation yesterday that central banks—with the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England leading the way—were overdoing it with their buy-every-asset-they-can-find approach to fighting the financial crisis. From the FT: “What other central banks have been doing must be reversed. I [...]
This morning’s big economic news: pending home sales are up for a third month in a row. That’s an indication that home buyers are coming off the sidelines, deciding that even if the market isn’t at a bottom it’s close enough to wade back in. (My, how my metaphors mix!) This seems to be good [...]
As you may have read, I was away for a week. Now I am back. Going through the gazillion emails that were waiting for me—but, no, really, technology makes life easier—I came across a very useful note from a reader named Zoltan. Before vacation, I mused on why, if I always pay off my credit-card [...]
I recently devoted a column to Peter Schiff, whom I first discussed in a piece headlined “The Armageddon Gang” in March 2007. Another member of the gang, Michael Panzner—whose 2007 book Financial Armageddon gave the group its name—recently came out with a new book titled When Giants Fall: An Economic Roadmap for the End of [...]
