Author Archive
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The Audit
Let’s Go to Court!
November 11, 2008 12:35 PMThere will time later to assess who’s ahead and who’s behind in the coverage of the financial crisis and the unprecedented scandal it represents, but for now it is important for all news organizations to put aside their rivalries and... Continue reading
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The Audit
Bloomberg Steps Up
November 7, 2008 02:18 PMThis story crossed Bloomberg's wire just before noon today: BLOOMBERG NEWS SUES FED TO FORCE DISCLOSURE OF LOAN COLLATERAL There’s not much to say but “Go Bloomberg” as the thundering herd of financial news files suit against the Federal... Continue reading
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The Audit
Goldman’s Backdoor Bailout
November 4, 2008 11:03 AMLast week, I wrote that the lack of disclosure surrounding the American International Group bailout had put The New York Times at odds with Bloomberg over a fundamental question: What was Goldman Sachs’s stake in that bailout? The Times,... Continue reading
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The Audit
Goldman’s Risk: Somewhere Between Zero and $20 Billion
October 29, 2008 03:01 PMCoverage of Goldman Sachs has perplexed me throughout the crisis. I’d still like to know, for instance, which subprime lenders it financed during the bad old days and how many of their mortgages it repackaged and sold as collateralized... Continue reading
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The Audit
Lupica Waves at One
October 24, 2008 04:48 PMSports columnists aren’t required to read balance sheets or anything, but surely Mike Lupica can do better than this lazy column today that tries to decry the high cost of the new Yankee Stadium and the (truly outrageous) fact... Continue reading
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The Audit
Frankly, Goldman, What About the CDOs?
October 20, 2008 02:42 PMA lengthy New York Times piece on the heavy involvement of Goldman Sachs alumni in the government apparatus in charge of the financial crisis avoids altogether what to me is a pressing question: What was Goldman’s own contribution to... Continue reading
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The Audit
Transparency, Regulation and …
October 17, 2008 12:22 PMMost readers don’t get to see newswire copy, which is available only to subscribers at a price we can’t afford. (Dow Jones: That’s a hint. And don’t forget we’re tax-deductible.) Michael Rapoport, a columnist for Dow Jones Newswires, offers... Continue reading
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The Audit
The Coming Credit Card Meltdown
October 16, 2008 11:20 AMBusinessWeek takes a useful look at the next big problem in consumer credit. One word: plastic. The piece’s perspective is upside-down, in my view, in that it concerns itself with the effect of looming defaults on lenders. Really, at... Continue reading
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The Audit
Spitzer’s Ghost
October 14, 2008 09:28 AMIn 2002, Georgia passed an anti-predatory lending law that had all the usual provisions—it forbade deceptive practices in the disclosure of basic terms, curbed pre-payment penalties that kept borrowers from refinancing or selling their homes, banned usurious interest, etc.—but... Continue reading
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The Audit
What She Said
October 13, 2008 02:22 PMA WSJ opinion piece today, “A Capitalist Manifesto,” strikes me as well-worth reading. True, the author, Judy Shelton, sets up a straw man: that the country’s “founding economic philosophy is in deep trouble.” There’s really no sign... Continue reading
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The Audit
Un-Intel @ NY Magazine
October 1, 2008 05:35 PMI thank New York Magazine and its Daily Intel blog for making me momentarily famous in the areas between Popover’s and the B’nei Jeshurun shul. However, I wonder if it’s not too much to ask the Intel people to... Continue reading
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The Audit
Ouryay Eatbay Just Ewblay Upyay
September 29, 2008 02:52 PMAs a service to the business-news trade, The Audit would like to offer a few observations about the current financial crisis that may prove helpful in coverage going forward. Our list of some inconvenient truths: 1. Your beat just blew... Continue reading
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The Audit
Debating a Catastrophe
September 26, 2008 05:19 PMFor months, the business pages and political pages felt so different in tone, content and intensity that reading them was like flipping between different movies. The business pages have been an endless saloon fight, with screaming, shouting, tables being... Continue reading
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The Audit
“Ailing” vs. “Embattled”
September 25, 2008 06:07 PMA front-page headline on Wednesday with an article about Warren E. Buffett’s plan to invest $5 billion in the Wall Street investment banking firm Goldman Sachs described that company as “ailing.” While its stock has been battered and it has... Continue reading
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The Audit
Roundup: A Two-Sided Scandal
September 24, 2008 09:16 AMOne thing forgotten by the business press in the debate over the $700 billion bailout, I think, is that this is not the first but the second blow dealt ordinary Americans in the credit scandal. Forcing taxpayers—who had nothing... Continue reading
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The Audit
Audit Roundup: Context, Please
September 23, 2008 09:32 AMIf I were a newspaper editor right now I’d be ordering more stories like this Bloomberg piece, which gropes for historical comparisons to where we are now and finds one in Scandinavia’s financial crisis of the late... Continue reading
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The Audit
Audit Roundup: Without Words
September 22, 2008 09:01 AMThe business press has done its usual thorough job of explaining the whos, whats and wherefores of this historic weekend, but I’m not sure anyone’s been able to convey the disgrace, the scandal in all its fullness, of the fact... Continue reading
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The Audit
Audit Roundup: Weil, Eisinger vs. White Noise
September 19, 2008 08:21 AMReaders who joined the business press conversation only recently must getting a headache by now. Wall Street is imploding, and what’s all this about short sellers? Are they really naked? Is “marking to market” really bad? It sounds so good.... Continue reading
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The Audit
It Really Is That Bad
September 18, 2008 11:42 AMPeople ask me if the business press has acted responsibly in describing the panic currently consuming global financial institutions and markets—what with the use of words like “momentous,” “unprecedented,” “historic,” etc.—and I tell them yes. There’s no other way... Continue reading
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The Audit
Public Policy Matters After All
September 16, 2008 12:19 PMI’m wondering if any other newspaper and business-press readers are curious about the degree to which public policy, including laws passed by Congress and signed by presidents, have anything to do with the great unraveling of the U.S. financial system?... Continue reading
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