Louise Story has a story in today’s NYT about Larry Summers’s two years at hedge fund giant D.E. Shaw. The topic of what the heck Larry was doing at Shaw came up in this blog not long after he joined. After initially mocking him, I eventually came around to the idea that he might be there for more than just window dressing. By Story’s …
TIME Asia’s Michael Schuman asks Is the Dollar Doomed?
His answer is basically: “Sure. Someday.” And he throws some cold water on the idea that the IMF’s special drawing rights could become the world’s new reserve currency:
And what would take the greenback’s place? Economists say that China’s suggestion of turning to SDRs might be
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The Dutch have had their own bonus brouhaha over the past few weeks, with bailed-out bank ING coming under fire for paying out 300 million euros in bonuses for 2008. It resulted in the bank’s chief executive asking his top 1,200 managers to give their bonuses back, and then a “gentleman’s agreement” (herenakkoord) between Finance …
My latest column is online. It’s about the private equity business, and it was inspired by the gloomy talk by private equiteer George Siguler that I wrote about last week.
I quote Siguler in the column, and I spell his name correctly. I had trouble with lots of others. Copy editors here caught me calling Blackstone boss Stephen …
From a CNNMoney story describing how the real estate bust has finally hit Manhattan:
The Manhattan market’s recovery will be driven by first-time buyers and low- to mid-level buyers, those paying $1.5 million or less, according to Diane Ramirez, president of Halstead Property.
Hmm, something about this makes me think Manhattan prices …
Here, updated with this morning’s non-farm payroll data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is the latest edition of my comparing-the-recessions chart:
Update: Now I’ve got a piece up on TIME.com about the employment data.
Update 2: Here’s a new version of my Great Recession vs. Great Depression job loss chart.
While looking for my very first magazine article online (because a fourth grader had asked me about it), I came across this remarkable utterance by Sandy Weill in a 1997 piece I wrote about the Morgan Stanley-Dean Witter merger:
“I think we found out in the 1980s that you really can’t be all things to all people,” says Weill, who also
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I spent 90 100 minutes this morning being interrogated by Curious Capitalist Jr.’s fourth grade class. He didn’t ask any questions, but his classmates sure did. This was partly because they knew they had to take a math test as soon as I left, and thus had ample incentive to prolong my visit, but it was still impressive. Just to …
The final communique of the G-20 summit is out. Here’s my favorite part:
4. We have today therefore pledged to do whatever is necessary to:
* restore confidence, growth, and jobs;
* repair the financial system to restore lending;
* strengthen financial regulation to rebuild trust;
* fund and reform our international financial
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The Financial Accounting Standards Board decided today to go ahead with its previously announced plans (albeit with some tweaks) to make it easier for banks to say the assets on their books are worth whatever they want to say they’re worth. The stock market reacted with seeming approval, with the S&P 500 up almost more than 3% on the day …
I had a talk two years ago with Kenneth Rogoff, the Harvard professor and former IMF chief economist, about the future of the IMF. The IMF in its present form, he argued, made no sense.
“If you look today at the IMF’s total lendable resources, they’re $150 to $200 billion,” he said. “China has more than $1 trillion in reserves, Taiwan …
Felix Salmon, at his new home over at Reuters, wonders what’s up with Steve Forbes’s decision to cut the pay of Forbes staffers making more than $100,000:
This is taxing the rich! It’s class warfare! Why should those employees earning a six-figure salary be singled out for pay cuts? If you cut their pay, don’t you know that you’re
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