I’m already getting hate mail for having suggested that Americans’ epic struggle with credit-card debt isn’t entirely the fault of big, bad credit card companies. Guess that’s not what we’re in the mood to hear.
The irony is that if you actually read my story past the headline (which I didn’t write), you’ll see that I’m giving …
Justin’s not the only one hitting the book-party circuit. Last night I went to a shindig for Kate Kelly’s new book, Street Fighters: The Last 72 Hours of Bear Stearns, the Toughtest Firm on Wall Street. I saw in the comments section of Justin’s post that rrsafety plans to read the “Bear Stearns books”—which I assume to be this one and …
I just got these. The first honest-to-goodness copies of my book. Barack Obama, Jack Bogle and Clarence Seedorf are all very excited and I am too. As my publicity campaign gears up (the official publication date is June 9), I’m going to try not to plug the book too mercilessly on this blog—which is after all the property of Time Inc. …
The FT hosted a breakfast this morning where Gillian Tett promoted her new book about derivatives and the financial crisis, Fool’s Gold. There was a great moment during the Q&A when NYT columnist Joe Nocera started off, “There’s this character in your book, Mark Brickell …”
“He’s sitting behind you,” Tett interrupted. At which point …
I’ve got an article in this week’s magazine about how to spend less money. Unfortunately, the graphic that went along with it didn’t make it online. The art department folks—designer Patricia Hwang and photo editor Bill Carwin—did a great job, so now, exclusively for readers of the Curious Capitalist, here it is:
The Washington Post has a fascinating tale today of student-loan behemoth Sallie Mae throwing in the towel—and abandoning its long-time frenemies in the banking industry—by more or less endorsing the Obama administration’s plan to put student lending in the hands of government. Sallie Mae’s tweak to the administration plan involves …
Right before the stock market bottomed out on March 9, I wrote a column (headlined “Call Me Mr. Sunshine”) outlining five reasons for moderate optimism on the economy. I didn’t make any kind of market call (unlike Doug Kass), but clearly I was on to something: Everybody had gotten so pessimistic that it was almost inevitable that they …
I’ve been steamed for years because, when fortune.com became money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/, the Time Warner powers that be saw fit to delete from existence out all web-only content that had previously resided on fortune.com, including the ‘London Calling’ columns I wrote every week in 2000 and 2001. Well, I’m still steamed, but not as …
That’s me, chomping on a bull’s head after interviewing Jim Cramer today for next week’s 10 Questions. Apart from when he’s talking about how mean Jon Stewart was, Cramer is really compelling (in a rambling, totally neurotic sort of way). He didn’t yell or say “booyah,” but he did let me push all the noise buttons to the left of his …
The official monthly employment numbers released this morning, while somewhat less bad than those of the past few months, didn’t offer much in the way of succor. Nonfarm payrolls dropped by 539,000, seasonally adjusted, the unemployment rate rose to 8.9%, and both would have been worse but for a hiring binge at the Census Bureau …
They’re out! And available for download! And what do the long-awaited stress tests from America’s banking regulators tell us? Well, first of all, that American Express, BB&T, Bank of New York Mellon, Capital One, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, MetLife, State Street and U.S. Bancorp all get to go about their business without having to …
The Treasury Department will finally be releasing the already endlessly leaked, contemplated and criticized stress tests in a few hours. After that we will be subjected to another confusing month or so of watching the banks deemed to be in need of more capital find ways to meet regulators’ demands. Much of this, it appears, will involve …
