I’m an avid reader of financial blogs. One of the blogs I read is Bronte Capital- www.brontecapital.blogspot.com. This blog covers an eclectic range of financial issues, and is written by John Hempton, an Australian. Hempton has always impressed me as fair and objective. Hempton’s most recent entry concerns the Astarra Strategic Fund, which is part of a group of related hedge funds which have been | Read More »
Which would you rather be? A stagehand at Carnegie Hall, or the CEO of Citicorp? Hint: one pays a LOT better than the other, and it’s not the one you’d think. First, for the five biggest recipients of TARP aid, the Pay Czar has decreed massive pay cuts. See http://www.cnbc.com/id/33417281: At the financial products division of the insurance giant, A.I.G., the locus of problems that | Read More »
Some of yesterday’s news: the health care bill was delayed; more than 40 people were arrested in New Jersey for a range of corruption charges; (local news) more serious problems were uncovered with the regional subway system; and the DOW climbed back to 9000. Less consequential news (but fun to read) included: a controversy over race between Obama and the Cambridge police; Hillary accelerated her dive into | Read More »
That’s how much time I’ll save because I’ve stopped reading your columns, Peggy Noonan. It’s a shame. For many years- dating well back into the Clinton days- I looked forward to reading your thoughts. You write well, I agreed with your values, and you always took a unique, positive perspective. But that’s not today’s Peggy Noonan. In the last few months, I was surprised at your reticence even to | Read More »
This is one of the most amazing videos I’ve ever seen. The inspector general of the Federal Reserve, in charge of auditing the Fed’s activities, doesn’t know- * Who got the $1 trillion in direct Fed payments during this bailout period * Whether it’s true or not that, as Bloomberg says, the Fed has also entered into “$9 trillion of off balance sheet transactions”, and, | Read More »
Our Leader calls his FIRST cabinet meeting to discuss the critical issue of spending control, and heroically requests the cabinet members to find, over the next 90 days, $100 million in savings. Some perspective: * This is about .005% of the forecasted 2009 budet deficit. * At this rate, it would take the Cabinet almost 5,000 years to find enough savings to balance the budget. | Read More »
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