Author Archive

Articles by Ryan Chittum | Email the Author

 

1. The Audit

   Reinflating the Bubble

   February 25, 2010 06:28 PM

   A relative of mine just got this in the mail from Bank of America Home Loans (ie: Countrywide) offering to refinance his home loan with a ten-year interest-only option ARM (well, it's unclear if it's actually an ARM or if... Continue reading

2. The Audit

   Are Swaps Helping Create a Greek Death Spiral?

   February 25, 2010 10:14 AM

   It's a good idea for The New York Times to point out that Wall Street is betting against Greece after having helped get it in dire straits. Banks helped Greece obscure its actual debt from regulators (and investors,... Continue reading

3. The Audit

   Audit Notes: Rewrite, Taibbi’s Coffee, TBTF Antitrust

   February 24, 2010 07:52 PM

   Jonathan Stray of the Nieman Journalism Lab finds that of 121 stories on Google hackers being traced to schools in China, just thirteen contained original reporting and only seven were "primarily based on original reporting." All but one were... Continue reading

4. The Audit

   Was IndyMac a Sweetheart Deal or Just Sweet?

   February 24, 2010 05:03 PM

   The Los Angeles Times is good to point out that the consortium of billionaires and might-as-well-be-billionaires, including George Soros and John Paulson, who bought the former IndyMac from the FDIC is making out like bandits on the deal. They... Continue reading

5. The Audit

   When Government Acts Like Private Industry

   February 24, 2010 10:28 AM

   The Wall Street Journal is good this morning to look at how public entities dirtied their hands in the bubble by teaming up on investment deals that preyed on low-to-middle-income people. It's specifically looking at Calpers—the enormous California pension... Continue reading

6. The Audit

   Audit Notes: Underemployment, Rogue Industry, Schedule A

   February 23, 2010 07:40 PM

   The St. Petersburg Times's has an excellent profile of an MBA who's gone from a six-figure job to bagging groceries in three years. It's a snapshot of the downwardly mobile in post-crash America: The national unemployment rate is 10... Continue reading

7. The Audit

   Bloomberg’s Overdraft Story Doesn’t Have the Goods

   February 23, 2010 03:27 PM

   Bloomberg has its heart in the right place with a story on banks seeking new prey, err, revenue streams to replace overdrafts (although, as the Times showed this morning, they're doing all they can to con consumers into... Continue reading

8. The Audit

   NYT Shows Banks Playing Dirty on Overdrafts

   February 23, 2010 10:21 AM

   The New York Times is excellent to spotlight how banks are using aggressive marketing tactics to try to trick customers into opting in to overdraft "protection" now that federal law forces banks to make consumers choose to let banks... Continue reading

9. The Audit

   Audit Notes: Goldman-Greece, Planet Money, Leverage Limits

   February 22, 2010 07:37 PM

   The Wall Street Journal flooded the zone on the Goldman-Greece debt scandal with a troika of stories today. On page one, it has a nice overview of the story and broadens it by pointing out that other European countries,... Continue reading

10. The Audit

    The WSJ Is Hit and Miss on Geithner

    February 22, 2010 10:38 AM

    The Wall Street Journal has some interesting reporting this morning on Tim Geithner—reporting that doesn't do him any good. But the paper fumbles the execution of the story here with a dumb headline and a top that focuses too... Continue reading

11. The Audit

    Audit Notes: Uh Oh, Joe Cassano; Asian Markets; BW Hires

    January 29, 2010 06:54 PM

    Reuters reports that AIG may have misled investors on material information related to its exposure to subprime mortgages. Investigative reporter Matthew Goldstein has waded through Schedule A and determined that some 30 percent of the CDO's insured were after... Continue reading

12. The Audit

    Mortgage Securitization in the Roaring Twenties

    January 29, 2010 04:18 PM

    Floyd Norris has a fascinating column today on new research that shows, yet again, that there's nothing new under the sun—even on Wall Street. And I thought mortgage securitization was something invented by Lewis Ranieri in the '80s.... Continue reading

13. The Audit

    Bloomberg’s Reilly Wrecks the Lex on Fed/AIG

    January 29, 2010 11:07 AM

    Bloomberg's David Reilly has a terrific column up today on the New York Federal Reserve and what's wrong with its secrecy on the AIG bailout (and on everything else, for that matter). Reilly kicks things off with a half-joke... Continue reading

14. The Audit

    Audit Notes: Lex Dreck, Recourse, Extend and Pretend

    January 28, 2010 09:39 PM

    This is a bad sentiment for a journalist to have: Postmortems are revealing. But too much poking is damaging. That's the Financial Times's Lex column this morning telling the media and Congress to back off on the AIG backdoor... Continue reading

15. The Audit

    Goldman, Gawker, and the Journal

    January 28, 2010 06:31 PM

    Here's a good example of reporting by old media getting amplified and expanded upon by new media. The Wall Street Journal has a good page-one story today on how banks are finagling the compensation issue by providing other perks... Continue reading

16. The Audit

    Newsday Paywall Is Barely Affecting Local Traffic

    January 28, 2010 01:38 PM

    The news that Newsday has signed up just thirty-five online subscribers since it put its Web site behind a paywall caused a little splash the other day. We said don't make too much of it since the paper has... Continue reading

17. The Audit

    Bloomberg’s One-Source Stories

    January 28, 2010 10:51 AM

    One of the essentials of writing a news story is to talk to more than one source. That's so basic it's kind of an embarrassing lede. But tell that to Bloomberg. It has a habit of writing up what people... Continue reading

18. The Audit

    Audit Notes: Schedule AIG, Leveraging Pensions, Bank Labor v. Capital

    January 27, 2010 08:23 PM

    The mysterious AIG Schedule A, which the Federal Reserve concealed from the public (read our account here of how reporter Matthew Goldstein's FOIA request for the document spurred further secrecy by the government), is out there now. Here's... Continue reading

19. The Audit

    Outside the Forties

    January 27, 2010 07:12 PM

    We've often complained that the press, much less politicians and the regulators, are still playing three-yards-and-a-cloud-of dust ball between the forty yard lines in the response to this crisis. But check out this paragraph deep in today's New York... Continue reading

20. The Audit

    Advancing the AIG Story

    January 27, 2010 02:08 PM

    Today is AIG day and there's lots of interesting stuff out there in the press (not to mention Geithner live on C-SPAN). First, there's quite a bit of focus on a November 5 presentation BlackRock made to Tim Geithner's New... Continue reading

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