Author

Edward Harrison 7783 posts 575 comments

Edward Harrison is a senior Editor at Bloomberg. He is also the founder of Credit Writedowns newsletter, a former career diplomat, investment banker and technology executive with over twenty five years of business experience. He speaks six languages and reads another five, skills he uses to provide a more global perspective. Edward holds an MBA in Finance from Columbia University and a BA in Economics from Dartmouth College.

Political Economy

Barney Frank rips Hank Paulson’s bait and switch

Edward Harrison Nov 18, 2008

I am listening to the Congressional hearings with Sheila Bair, Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke recounting what they have done to restore the economy with the $700 billion that Congress gave the Bush Administration. The hearing is pretty…

Economy

Producer price inflation down 2.8%, but core up 0.4%

Edward Harrison Nov 18, 2008

The headline story is that this is the largest month-to-month fall ever since monthly statistics began for this data series in 1947. But, as you can see from the chart below, all of this decline was due to food and energy. Therefore, the…

News

News round-up: 18 Nov 2008

Edward Harrison Nov 18, 2008

Greetings and happy Tuesday. While I hope it is a happy Tuesday, it doesn't look as cheery in the markets today (see pre-market chart below). I am getting the sense that we are going to retest 2008 and 2002 lows. The 2008 low on the…

Economy

Volcker warns how serious things have become

Edward Harrison Nov 18, 2008

In a very downbeat assessment of the ability of financial and monetary stewards to deal with the most protracted financial crisis is some 75 years, Paul Volcker, the esteemed former Fed Chariman warned that the economic slump has spread in…

Blogs

The Top 25 Finance and Economics Blogs

Edward Harrison Nov 18, 2008

Brian Gongol comes out with a list of the most-trafficked business and economic blogs every month. This month, we made it onto the list at number 25. I want to thank everyone for reading this blog and helping it get into the top 25 so…

Political Economy

GE Capital is a bank, but Genworth will be too

Edward Harrison Nov 17, 2008

A reader has recently corrected a claim I made on a recent blog entry regarding GE Capital. I would like to bring this error to your attention and make a few comments. The first statement is actually not correct. Looking at the FDIC…

Political Economy

Bush Administration turns the TARP over to Obama

Edward Harrison Nov 17, 2008

In a surprising move, the Bush Administration has decided not to seek the $350 billion still to be used under the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program). Instead, they will allow Barack Obama's Administration to distribute the monies as they…

Economy

Retail Sales: a belated look at Friday’s ugly numbers

Edward Harrison Nov 15, 2008

Because I was out of commission pretty much all day on Friday, I haven't been able to crunch the U.S. retail sales numbers until now. But, let me do a recap today and breakdown what these numbers might mean for the U.S. economy. The…

Political Economy

Everyone wants in on the bailout gravy train, cities too

Edward Harrison Nov 15, 2008

Hank Paulson may have created a monster. He has recently said that he does not want to use the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) to buy dodgy assets as he originally billed the U.S. bailout measure. Instead, he wants to inject cash…

Political Economy

Chart of the day: Fed Balance Sheet

Edward Harrison Nov 14, 2008

This chart and the commentary both come from FT Alphaville: A look at the Fed's balance sheet currently will tell you it's very much in the business of supporting liquidity/prices in assets other than Treasuries. The graph below is a…

Previous 1 … 670 671 672 673 674 … 779 Next