Economy

I am astounded at how quickly we have returned to the pre-crisis days of yore. Credit spreads are down, the stock market is up, volatility is down, earnings are up and bonuses are up.  It looks like happy days are here again. But, I…

The jobless claims numbers have been telling us the same thing for weeks now, namely that the employment market is still weak but that layoffs are gradually slowing. But,  the unadjusted number of initial claims dropped 59k last week…

via the Hartford Courant (Hat tip Scott).

Stephen Roach doesn’t mince words.  He calls monetary policy during the bubble years “reckless and irresponsible” and he thinks politics is thwarting any meaningful regulatory reform, a view I also hold. I think the point of Roach’s…

Everyone is running with his or her own “Lessons from Lehman” post as if we have actually learned anything from the financial crisis – and as if it is already over and behind us. Well, I have some lessons learned for you via Dharma Joint…

Below is a good video analysis by Jess Bravin of the Wall Street Journal on the BofA-Merrill Lynch saga.  Bravin discusses the recent rejection by Judge Jed Rakoff of the out-of-court settlement between the SEC and Bank of America…

Now that President Obama has signalled his willingness to punish the Chinese for dumping on tires, a whole host of other industries are likely to file their own ‘copy-cat’ complaints. Reuters says: President Barack Obama's decision to…

This September 2009 post still describes my general view on the U.S. economy. If I wrote it today, I would be more bearish medium-term because it is obvious that in 2010 fiscal and monetary policy will become less supportive of recovery.…

This comes from the blog News from 1930: An out-of-work broker asked a friend who owned a circus for work. His friend said the circus gorilla had recently died, and if the broker wanted to get into the gorilla's skin, swing around,…

Via CNBC: Bernie Madoff, the man who orchestrated the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, is heard on tape in 2005 talking to executives at Fairfield Greenwich about how to get around the SEC. Ron Geffner, a former SEC enforcement…