I’m sitting here listening to Lehman Brothers executives explain how they lost $2.8 billion in the last quarter, and pledge not to do it again. CEO Dick Fuld started off the conference call a half-apologetic, half-gung-ho little speech, which I found entirely comprehensible. But then Fuld mentioned that he’d heard investors and analysts …
I’m going to be on CNN’s Your $$$$$ this weekend (it airs Saturday at 1 p.m. ET and Sunday at 3 p.m.) talking with Ali Velshi and John Rutledge about the economy and the presidential campaign. Rutledge is what I’d call a legit supply-sider, a guy who believes fervently that low taxes on capital are crucial to economic growth, but doesn’t …
You’ve (maybe) read the first draft. Now the not-all-that-different rewrite is in the issue of Time with the fat kid on the cover and online here. It begins:
When Barack Obama says a John McCain Administration would amount to a third term of George W. Bush, he’s not just blowing smoke, especially when it comes to economic policy. Yes,
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An alert friend has called my attention to the fact that I was quoted, by name (!), in what appears to be the lead editorial in today’s Anniston Star. The Star is a small but venerated Alabama newspaper that has over the years employed the likes of Jim Yardley, Robin DeMonia, Seth Lipsky, Adam Nossiter and Rick Bragg. The editorial is …
LA Times columnist TJ Simers interrogates Phil Jackson before Game 3:
“I believe you’re getting paid $10 million for moments like this,” I said at his pre-game news conference.
“How would you even know that stuff?” he replied. “You’re not the IRS.”
“Is it more than that?”
“Do I ask information about you?” Jackson said.
“I don’t make
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The addition of Jason Furman to Barack Obama’s economic team has gotten some attention. Furman was John Kerry’s economics spokesguy in 2004, but more to the point he’s about as centrist as centrist Democrats come, thinks Wal-Mart is swell, and is a protege of Bob Rubin. So I figure it’s worth mentioning that, during the conference call …
The mainstream media get a lot of flak for focusing so much on political horse races and neglecting the big issues. I tend to agree with this criticism, and when I’m not bloviating about soccer I try to devote most of the space in this blog and in my Time column to more or less substantive discussion of economic and business …
The last time the Netherlands played Italy in a game that mattered, I missed all but the tragic ending. It was the semifinals of the 2000 European championships, and I had somehow gotten the idea that it was an evening game. The Curious Capitalist family (although I guess we weren’t the Curious Capitalist family yet then) was staying in …
After reading (and watching part of) the speech on the economy that Barack Obama gave in Raleigh on Monday, and listening on a conference call with Obama advisers Austan Goolsbee and Jason Furman, I churned out this little piece for Time.com:
When it comes to economic policy, Barack Obama’s standard campaign crack that a John McCain
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A leftover from the family weekend in Charlottesville. This shot of Mr. Jefferson’s Rotunda was taken just before a hokey light show, which substituted for the traditional UVa reunions fireworks because, the word was, there wasn’t enough money for fireworks. To say Curious Capitalist Jr. was disappointed is a pretty big understatement. …
I wrote this for Time.com Thursday:
The race for the Great Fed Second Guess of 2008 is now well under way: First out of the blocks was former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, who worried aloud in April that forcing and partially financing the takeover of ailing investment bank Bear Stearns had taken the Fed to “the very edge of
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I’m off today, visiting lovely (albeit scorching hot) Charlottesville for Mrs. Curious Capitalist’s XXth Reunion (I figure I might get in trouble for disclosing the actual number; update: Mrs. CC points out that my attempt at nondisclosure failed, given that it is her XXth Reunion). But I forgot to tell anybody at work that I was going …
