Tag Archives: crisis
Rumbling Gates
WSJ (14 Aug ’09) The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [...] sold off almost all of its pharmaceutical, biotechnology and health-care investments in the quarter ended June 30, according to a regulatory filing published Friday. [It] sold its total holding of 2.5 million shares in health-care giant Johnson & Johnson in the quarter [as well [...]
Posted in economics, international, medicine, science, trend Also tagged Gates, healthcare Leave a comment
GIGO
Note the insect that crawls across the screen right on cue @5:07: Spitzer @5:30: The Federal Reserve has benefited for decades from the notion that it is quasi-autonomous, it’s supposed to be independent. Let me tell you a dirty secret: the Fed has done an absolutely disastrous job since Paul Volcker left [11 Aug ’87]. [...]
Posted in economics, finance, government, media Also tagged AIG, banks, Fed, Goldman Sachs, MSNBC, Spitzer Leave a comment
ATM = NO 2 CA IOU
Software (someonewithoverlyrestrictiverightssettings@flickr): Hardware (alicegop@flickr):
Posted in finance, government, money, standards, trend Also tagged ATM, bank, California, IOU Leave a comment
eBankrun
BBC, “Billions stolen in online robbery” (3 Jul ’09): Space trading game Eve Online has suffered a virtual version of the credit crunch. One of the game’s biggest financial institutions lost a significant chunk of its deposits as a huge theft started a run on the bank. One of the bank’s controllers stole about 200bn [...]
Posted in digital, economics, money, network, security, trend Also tagged Eve Online Leave a comment
Funhouse Backed Securities (FBS); or, Against Tufte (public) note 00003
Six Flags ‘goes tits up,’ as the Brits say. One way to tell the story of how that story unfolded could involve the rigid application of Tufte’s parsimonious hectoring, sermonizing, and hucksterizing; but something like speculativebubble.com’s dramatization could be so much better. Meanwhile… Twitter-coupon blue-light special flash-mob permanent-floating-bailout-club just-add-water MMFery. In a press release issued [...]
Too big to fail: California
California State Controller John Chiang in a 10 June ’09 letter to Schwarzenegger: In the absence of legislative action, the State will not have sufficient cash to meet all of its payment obligations on July 28. By July 31, the cash deficit will increase to a negative $2.78 billion. (calcrisk)
Unreal estate
A klein bottle: “From the archives: how to fix a liquidity crisis (13 Dec ‘07)”—that is, in 2007—quoted the FT as saying: The latest Fed flow of funds data shows that FHLBs [Federal Home Loan Banks, "a little-known network of government-sponsored bank co-operatives founded during the Great Depression"] issued new loans at an unprecedented annualised [...]
Posted in economics, finance, government, trend Also tagged bank, bankrupt, mortgage, real estate Leave a comment
Promising idea
Deny pensions to former execs of too-big-but-failed companies. See also: “Troubled asse(t)s,” wherein Credit Suisse Group compensated bankers “with an illiquid group of junk bonds, mortgage-backed securities and corporate loans.” Cf. malus, n., “The return of performance-related compensation originally payed by an employer to an employee as a result of the discovery of a defect [...]
POTD
Phrase of the day: see-through buildings. Washington Business Journal: Anyone who follows the commercial real estate market knows there are buildings in trouble throughout Washington, but as one drives along the Dulles Toll Road or Route 28, it’s hard to miss the signs of distress. “See-through buildings” dot the corridor, bereft of the interior office [...]
Posted in architecture, finance, language, neighborhood, trend, urban Also tagged real estate Leave a comment
Let your fingers do the browsing
Denver Business Journal on the yellow pages going bust: R. H. Donnelley CEO Dave Swanson says that no one could have foreseen the series of events that led to the tattered Yellow Pages publisher filing Friday for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. [...] “We just could not have anticipated the severity of the economic downturn,” Swanson [...]
Posted in digital, finance, media, network, trend Also tagged history, paper, phone, publishing Leave a comment
Random number of the day
One out of every 54 “homes” in California is in foreclosure.
Posted in architecture, economics, neighborhood, trend Also tagged California, real estate Leave a comment
BMOTD [bon mot of the day]
Dean Baker: This raises the obvious question, if the banks are in such good shape, why not take away the training wheels and let them fend for themselves in the market? Training wheels.
FIRE, Detroit, GOP, Microsoft
[FIRE = Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate] MOFT: At Microsoft, we see a future full of potential. We’re working to expand the possibilities for computing every day, by continually improving and advancing our current products and embarking on fundamental research that paves the way for tomorrow’s breakthroughs. Fleishman: Microsoft has revealed that Windows 7 will [...]
Consumer confusion
In Roubiniworld, metaphors are shaken not stirred: While the worsening employment outlook is in line with Wall Street’s expectation, persistently high monthly job losses and the accelerating rise in the unemployment rate will further dampen Main Street’s consumption and animal spirits in an economy already facing considerable headwinds due to massive wealth destruction. Disambiguate.
Just another future song
Audio: [Rev. ed. 09-05-21: Seeqpod went bust; you can manually reconstruct this post yourself by finding a recording of David Bowie’s “Diamond Dogs.”] Video: The Top 25 Fortune 500 Companies in New York City rank in: corporation Headquarters (New York, NY) Fortune 500 industry group 2007 Revenues ($ million) Stock price 2008 NYC NYS US [...]
Finance allegory #1
Shades of Lehman, toxic assets, and stress tests: And, of course, Detroit.
Bailout bill
The Zimbabwean (.co.uk, “a voice for the voiceless”), which offers among other things “daily cholera updates and alerts,” writes: One of the most eloquent symbols of Zimbabwe’s collapse is the Z$100 trillion dollar note, a symptom of their world record inflation. This note cannot buy anything, not even a loaf of bread and certainly not [...]
Posted in LDCs, design, economics, government, money Also tagged advertising, currency, Zimbabwe Leave a comment
SLM: I Have good news and bad news
First the good news: Sallie Mae gave some hope to the unemployed Monday, announcing it will bring 2,000 jobs to the U.S. within the next 18 months as it shifts call center and other operations from overseas. The move marks somewhat of a turnaround for the nation’s largest private student lender, which two years ago [...]
Bespoke
Alas: See also: “McCain’s modest proposal.” (salmon)
Posted in economics, finance, government, international, network, trend Also tagged EU, parliament, rhetoric, UK Leave a comment
“Because nature doesn’t do bailouts”
Ainger, “Once beaten for stating the obvious, our time has come,” Teh Grauniad, 26 Mar ’09): Ten years ago, the anticapitalist movement predicted this recession. (pr@nettime)
Pity party
AIG EVP Jake DeSantis to AIG CEO Edward Liddy: I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in—or responsible for—the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. [...]
Self-inflating flotation device
Doug Henwood: (By the way, the buzz is that some banks may participate in the bailout scheme, borrowing money from the gov to buy their own bad assets at ridiculously inflated prices. That renders them technically solvent, with Washington holding the bag. Nice.) Gangster.
Healthcare debate: generational warfare