Credit Writedowns

The big news is the economy and President-elect Obama's reaction to it. The pundtitocracy has really been hammering him on his staff picks and the meat of his stimulus package. To be sure, there have been a few positive notes about Obama's…

In an FT opinion piece, Jagdish Bhagwati, a famous name in economic circles on the issue of free trade, issued a blistering attack on president-elect Barack Obama's commitment to free trade in the face of a deteriorating U.S. job market.…

If you recall, last month the figure was quoted at 533,000 jobs lost in November and unemployment came in at 6.7% (now revised up to 6.8%), up from 6.5% in October. The consensus estimate for December, according to Bloomberg was for 7.0%…

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…