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Articles by Ryan Chittum | Email the Author

 

1. The Audit

   Bloomberg Shows Banks Teetering with Market Prices

   March 8, 2010 03:05 PM

   Some good reporting by Bloomberg today shows how the banking system is dependent on make-believe accounting to help prop it up. It reports that the FDIC is planning to auction off a billion dollars in seized assets from failed... Continue reading

2. The Audit

   Before Preemption There Was Riegle-Neal

   March 8, 2010 09:51 AM

   That may be the least-SEO-friendly headline of all time, but hey, we're not the Huffington Post! This from the Journal's Fed story today strikes me as something that's crying out for more coverage: The ultimate outcome could shape finance... Continue reading

3. The Audit

   Audit Notes: God of Journalism, Pandit Panned, Wolff’s Own Medicine

   March 5, 2010 06:24 PM

   The new-hire newsroom memo has long been a hotbed of puffery—a place where journalists consistently put aside their cynicism and engage in heartwarming rounds of fulsome (UPDATE: And when I say "fulsome," I mean "a lot." See Merrill Pearlman... Continue reading

4. The Audit

   Carrying Water for White-Collar Criminals

   March 5, 2010 03:45 PM

   Edward Ericson Jr. of Baltimore City Paper points us to a long, weird William D. Cohan blog piece at New York Times arguing for a pardon for ex-Goldman Sachs senior partner and convicted criminal Robert Freeman. Cohan paints... Continue reading

5. The Audit

   Revisiting That Hyped WSJ Hedge-Fund Story

   March 5, 2010 05:20 AM

   Last week, The Wall Street Journal ran an odd story on its front page headlined "Hedge Funds Pound Euro"—something Felix Salmon saw as the latest evidence of "the sensationalist WSJ." I did, too. That was because the... Continue reading

6. The Audit

   Audit Notes: Bennett on Health Care, Fortune, WaPo Digital, Facebook

   March 4, 2010 07:24 PM

   Bloomberg editor Amanda Bennett has a remarkable story today recounting her husband's battle with cancer, how much it cost to extend his life, and what it means for the health-care system: Terence and I didn’t have to think about... Continue reading

7. The Audit

   TNR on Obama and Regulation

   March 4, 2010 05:55 PM

   Secretary of Audit Dean Starkman has often criticized the press for its lackluster coverage of regulation, while acknowledging that it's gotten somewhat better since the crisis. Still, there's a lot that I, for one, didn't know... Continue reading

8. The Audit

   CNBC Millionaires Don’t Believe in Predatory Lending

   March 4, 2010 04:21 AM

   Barry Ritholtz points to this ludicrous CNBC segment where everyone gangs up on Janet Tavakoli for pointing out the obvious: the housing bubble was inflated in no small part by predatory lending. Now CNBC isn't exactly where you go... Continue reading

9. The Audit

   Audit Notes: Monopoly Culture, Health Care, SNLers on CFPA

   March 3, 2010 09:27 PM

   Thomas Frank reviews an interesting-looking book on monopolies in the American economy—one that argues that there are more than you might think. Of particular interest to us is Frank dropping a bit of business-press criticism in there: What we... Continue reading

10. The Audit

    The NYT Muffs the Second-Day Fed-CFPA Story

    March 3, 2010 04:20 PM

    The New York Times tries to play catch-up on the proposal to put the Consumer Financial Protection Agency inside the Federal Reserve—an idea we said yesterday bordered on parody and which Barney Frank called a "bad joke"—and... Continue reading

11. The Audit

    Corporate Welfare Columns, Yea and Nay

    March 3, 2010 09:51 AM

    The Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein takes on corporate welfare at the local level today and shows how such a column should be done. Thomas Friedman, as usual, shows how not to. Northrop Grumman, the giant defense contractor, is... Continue reading

12. The Audit

    Audit Notes: Deflation, SEC Wrist Slap, ARMs

    March 2, 2010 06:53 PM

    It seems odd that the press hasn't written more about the threat of deflation. Paul Krugman, no inflation hawk he, has been on it in the last couple of weeks, though. Here he has a chart comparing the disinflation... Continue reading

13. The Audit

    Newspapers’ Online Ads Are Worse Than You Think

    March 2, 2010 03:22 PM

    Martin Langeveld points out something interesting in Scripps's fourth-quarter earnings: Those already-dismal online advertising numbers you've seen for newspapers? They're badly inflated. If you want to get even more depressed about the state of newspapers, consider that a very... Continue reading

14. The Audit

    Fed Up, Consumers Down

    March 2, 2010 06:00 AM

    The Federal Reserve isn't exactly known as a friend of the little guy. And for good reason. So it borders on parody that Senate Finance Committee poobahs are close to a deal to fold the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency... Continue reading

15. The Audit

    Audit Notes: CDS Ban, WSJ v. NYT, A No-Layoffs Policy

    March 1, 2010 08:19 PM

    Wolfgang Munchau asks in the Financial Times why it's still legal to buy credit-default swaps when you don't own the underlying asset: A naked CDS purchase means that you take out insurance on bonds without actually owning them. It... Continue reading

16. The Audit

    The Unemployed on the Payday Loan Treadmill

    March 1, 2010 02:50 PM

    The Los Angeles Times reports that payday lenders are feasting on the jobless, taking huge chunks of their unemployment checks in exchange for advancing them money for a week or two. No job? No problem. A typical unemployed Californian... Continue reading

17. The Audit

    Breakingviews Says This Out of Love, Goldman

    March 1, 2010 10:51 AM

    Shorter Reuters Breakingviews: "The great Goldman Sachs, despite its greatness, should apologize for not living up to its higher standards of greatness which are greater than others." It's been a while since I've read such a gullible piece of... Continue reading

18. The Audit

    Audit Notes: North Dakota Tea, WSJ Heds, AP Charge

    February 26, 2010 07:07 PM

    This is good bread-and-butter business reporting by The Wall Street Journal. It reports on an oil boom unfolding in North Dakota, thanks to new technology that the industry has developed to exploit fields that were once too hard to... Continue reading

19. The Audit

    No Context on the Fed’s New Fangs

    February 26, 2010 10:25 AM

    Since when has the Federal Reserve been an investigative pit bull? Since never. But don't look to the major papers for that context this morning in their reports on Chairman Bernanke's toughish comments to Congress yesterday on Goldman Sachs and... Continue reading

20. The Audit

    Audit Notes: NYT CDS, Embargoes, Obama Folds

    February 25, 2010 08:59 PM

    I had some reservation about the Times story on Greece and credit-default swaps this morning. Although I liked the idea of pointing out that Wall Street is making bets against Greece after helping it conceal its true indebtedness,... Continue reading

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