A reader (well, this Pulitzer-winning genius newspaper columnist of a reader), e-mails after reading my book: From the very beginning of financial capitalism, the goal seems to have been to beat the market, which is to say, anticipate and profit the upside and downside of the market—not the industry or business of the stock traded. [...]
The WSJ is reporting that Christopher Dodd is flirting with giving up on the idea of a stand-alone Consumer Financial Protection Agency. The House’s financial-reform bill included such an agency, albeit in a form watered-down from what the Obama Administration initially envisioned. According to the WSJ, Dodd will only agree to take the agency out [...]
I just did an interview on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that will air on public radio’s Here and Now today a bit after noon Eastern time (or whenever your local station happens to carry it). As I prepared for it, I found myself paying less attention to this week’s hearings than to the transcripts [...]
Thanks to federal regulations first ordered up in 2003 (but just recently finalized), consumers who go to borrow money will soon know if they are being charged a higher interest rate because of something unsavory on their credit report. As Kenneth Harney has pointed out, it would have been nice to have had this rule prior [...]
I’m not entirely comfortable with the ‘why is Haiti poor’ discussion that broke out in a small way in the blogosphere after the earthquake. The issue right now isn’t how to bring better economic policies to Haiti, it’s how to bring doctors, medical supplies, food, and water (we’ve been going with donations to Doctors Without [...]
Remember when the economic crisis taught us the importance of saving some of our money for a rainy day? That’s a lesson the microfinance community is increasingly warming up to, too. I wrote a piece about the shift—emphasizing savings, not just lending—last summer, but I’m mentioning it again today because the Gates Foundation has announced that [...]
It’s day one of the Phil hearings (because, after the Pujo hearings and the Pecora hearings it has to start with a P). I tuned in just as commission chairman Phil Angelides was starting to question Lloyd Blankfein, and I generally liked their back and forth. Angelides is a Sacramento real estate developer turned Democratic [...]
So it’s December 1991. I’m 27 years old, and working as a reporter in the Montgomery bureau of The Birmingham News. One Monday morning, I pick up a New York Times—I think from the rack on South Decatur Street a couple blocks from my apartment. There’s a story in it about the new executive producer [...]
Sorry, forgot for a couple of days there that I’m a magazine columnist. Here’s what I wrote for the current issue.
Here’s one positive bit of news from the housing front: fewer houses are seeing their prices slashed by owners desperate to sell. In Trulia.com’s latest analysis of homes listed for sale, only 21% came up as having been previously listed at a higher price. A month ago, 22% of houses were listed at a reduced [...]
