It’s morning in Chicago
And I’m not going to have time for much of any blogging today. So enjoy the view from my window:
Articles from Contributor
New column (and video): From macro to freako
My column this week is about Steven Levitt, who together with his co-conspirator Stephen Dubner has a sequel to Freakonomics coming out next Tuesday. It’s called Superfreakonomics. We’ve also put together this lovely video:
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Strange things in the BofA and Citi earnings statements
Back in April, I wrote about the odd way in which investor concerns about potential defaults at Citigroup and Bank of America were boosting the banks’ earnings. I quoted commenter sulliclm‘s explanation:
they have to mark their liabilities to fair value, and in the case of their own debt (or in this case liabilities on derivative
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Lloyd Blankfein: What’s good for Goldman Sachs is good for America
Fortune put on a breakfast with Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein this morning at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse a couple doors down from the Time & Life Building. First came coffee and pastries, and then a conversation between Blankfein and Fortune editor Andy Serwer.
It was pretty entertaining, and Blankfein came across as more of a mensch …
At least some banks are losing money
First Goldman Sachs reports earnings of $3.2 billion for the quarter. But then, a few minutes later, Citigroup tells the world that it sort of made a little money but also sort of lost a lot of money (that is, it reported net income of $101 million, but said that, after dividends to preferred shareholders and its exchange of the …
It’s morning in Buffalo
Yeah, I know, it’s morning in the rest of America—and in the rest of the Americas—too. But I’m in Buffalo. And this is what I saw when I went out for a morning walk around 7:30:
American college grads: Homebodies with worthless degrees
I had a somewhat disturbing conversation yesterday with Steve Fussell, the senior VP of human resources at pharmaceutical maker Abbott. His basic message, which I may pursue in a column down the road, was that Abbott is going to be hiring tons of people for high-paying jobs over the next decade, but not many of them will be Americans …
Truly the last chance
This just arrived in the mailbox:
Retail sales down. JPMorgan profits up. Wall Street pay up. Hmmmm
The headlines this morning were a catchy juxtaposition: “Retail sales drop on fall in autos.” “JPMorgan profits surge six fold.” Oh, and “Wall Street on track to award record pay.”
The retail sales decline was actually a just a knock-on effect of the expiration of cash for clunkers. Retail sales excluding autos were up 0.5% on the …
Don’t bank with a sports nut
After yesterday’s sad tale of the fall of Colonial Bancgroup founder and Auburn football dictator Bobby Lowder, now we have another sports/banking mess, this time from the Netherlands. From the NRC Handelsblad (translation, for once, theirs—I’m going to stick with only English-language links this time):
The Dutch central bank took
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The story behind the year’s biggest bank failure
Fortune‘s Brian O’Keefe (the man who gave the Curious Capitalist its name) has an epic account of the rise and fall of Bobby Lowder and Colonial Bancgroup. Much Auburn University gossip is dished as well. Just one almost-randomly chosen example:
For years, Lowder’s most vocal opponent on the board of trustees was a lawyer named John
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Bashing 401(k)s on CNBC
In case you haven’t seen it already, our colleague Stephen Gandel has an excellent cover story on the problems with the 401(k). And here he is talking it up on CNBC this morning:
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