Where Did they Learn This Stuff?

Economic Meltdown Bankers – Harvard MBA, Stern School of Business – Business School | wowOwow
Which schools are the Academies of the Apocalypse, and who and how many went to each?
Is how Deborah Barrow launches into her list.  Harvard is on top.  THis si amusing, but not a very systematic pool of candidates.

What is wrong here

X-posted at my class blog.
“Retention bonuses” would seem to be bonuses by any other name.  Obviously, public and political scrutiny is at super high levels as we reel from the financial crisis.
This little nugget caught my eye about a joint venture between Citigroup and Morgan Stanley:
According to the newspaper [The WSJ], not all of the [...]

Headlines turning my world upside down

This is headline at Huffingtonpost.com
SENIOR REPUBLICANS: NATIONALIZATION OF BANKS MUST BE AN OPTION

What?  Why are Republicans in favor of nationalization?  Is this the path to Fascism?  Do they mean more of the same.. i.e. Socialized risk and privatized benefit?
My head is spinning.  I suppose I should read the article.

Da** you, Krugman!!!!! Scooped me again.

A friend from Dads night  can attest to the fact that on Wednesday I told him I think that Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and so-called “normal” investing in high finance, speculative vehicles is probably very similar in terms of how investors act and gather information.
Paul Krugman’s column in today’s NY Times starts off:
The revelation that Bernard [...]

Through the looking glass: Putting a Value on a C.E.O.

January 28- Update:
Maureen Dowd Agrees with me:
“If you don’t pay your best people, you will destroy your franchise” and they’ll go elsewhere, he said.
Hello? They destroyed the franchise. Let’s call their bluff. Let’s see what a great job market it is for the geniuses of capitalism who lost $15 billion in three months and helped [...]

Network Liabilities- Citigroup Pays for a Rush to Risk

The Reckoning – Citigroup Pays for a Rush to Risk – Series – NYTimes.com
But many Citigroup insiders say the bank’s risk managers never investigated deeply enough. Because of longstanding ties that clouded their judgment, the very people charged with overseeing deal makers eager to increase short-term earnings — and executives’ multimillion-dollar bonuses — failed to [...]

Paid to Destroy their Companies

The Wall Street Journal Online – Interactive Graphics
What is wrong with this picture?  What reasonable justification is there for thes ekinds of compensation packages?

The Reckoning – Agency’s ’04 Rule Let Banks Pile Up New Debt, and Risk – Series – NYTimes.com

The Reckoning – Agency’s ’04 Rule Let Banks Pile Up New Debt, and Risk – Series – NYTimes.com
In loosening the capital rules, which are supposed to provide a buffer in turbulent times, the agency also decided to rely on the firms’ own computer models for determining the riskiness of investments, essentially outsourcing the job of [...]

0% almost never appears in public polls

The National Economy
No Americans say that the national economy is getting better, 13% say it is staying the same, and 82% say the national economy is getting worse.

National economy

Getting better

Staying the same

Getting worse

Undecided

Sep 2008
-
13%
82%
5%

Aug 2008
18%
19%
60%
3%

Jul 2008
3%
20%
76%
1%

You almost never see 0% in public polls. They must not have any BOA executives, gold stock holders, or other [...]

No blank check for Wall Street.

No blank check for Wall Street.
This is worse than a bad deal – this isn’t a deal at all. This is a blank check to some of the richest companies in the world.
This is a blog post with a petition linked to  it.  I may not agree with all the language, but this is not [...]