January 2009

It looks like John Kenneth Galbraith is back in style after years of the laissez-faire crowd holding court. The Economist chronicles the revived interest in his works according to book sales at Amazon. He is definitely on my reading list.

I am a bit of technophile -- so much so my friends call me "Gadget Man." While I have toned down the bad early adopter purchases, I do still love my gadgets. With that in mind, here is Walter Mossberg doing his thing at the Wall Street…

After meetings with lawmakers, Citigroup has agreed to back legislation that would allow bankruptcy judges to alter the amount due on mortgage principal, so called cram downs. As it stands today, all other debtors including corporations…

UPDATE: 25 Mar 2009: In anticipation of the upcoming G-20 meeting and on the heels of some provocative comments made by Chinese officials regarding the US dollar, I would like to re-post this article from January. Paul Davidson has a very…

The row between Russia and Ukraine over payments for natural gas looks to be de-escalating. Gazprom has committed to letting the gas flow freely again after the EU requested this action be taken. The question now is whether the core issue…

This news of German goverment capital infusions at Commerzbank comes from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Germany. You will recall that Commerzbank was the winner in the bid to buy Dresdner Bank just a few months ago. However, this…

Jobless claims fell yet again last week to 467,000. And on the surface this would be comforting. However, the data are marred by seasonal adjustments. The actual non-adjusted data tell a completely different picture of a deteriorating…

The news today is about interest rates and the economy. First, in the U.S., there has been a huge move to the upside in Treasury yields. The obvious question is whether we are seeing the Treasury bubble burst. There are numerous reasons…

An issue that has received scant acknowledgment in the media is the likely hole in pension funds books resulting from the recent out in shares. Pension funds must invest the money they receive today in order to provide pensioners funds…

The credit default swaps (CDS) market is going to be a nightmare in 2009 because corporate bankruptcies are really picking up in the new year. The first major CDS settlement occurred yesterday and it was a near complete loss for sellers of…