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Articles by Ryan Chittum | Email the Author

 

1. The Audit

   Bloomberg Good on Stock Research

   October 9, 2009 09:35 AM

   Bloomberg has a solid look this morning at stock-research and the conflicts that still pervade the Wall Street research business seven years after Eliot Spitzer's campaign to clean that corrupt area up. The big problem with Wall Street analysts,... Continue reading

2. The Audit

   Thursday Links: Landlord Ben, Geithner, Elizabeth Warren

   October 8, 2009 06:44 PM

   Matthew Goldstein of Reuters looks at the thicket the Federal Reserve finds itself in because of its assumption of all those junk assets from Bear Stearns. They're "drawing the Fed into conflicts with commercial developers or into uneasy partnerships... Continue reading

3. The Audit

   WSJ on De-Leveraging and the Economy

   October 8, 2009 04:31 PM

   The Journal on page one today says we're experiencing a "Drought of Credit." I'm not sure it shows that, but the story does provide a look at the years-long problems the economy faces. The paper reports that credit in... Continue reading

4. The Audit

   AP: Geithner’s Wall Street Speed Dial

   October 8, 2009 10:01 AM

   The Associated Press rakes a little muck onto Tim Geithner's shoe this morning courtesy of his own phone records. Who does the Treasury secretary like to talk to most? Well, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup. He talked to... Continue reading

5. The Audit

   Wednesday Links: Weedkiller, Bloomberg Heds, and WSJ Analysis

   October 7, 2009 06:22 PM

   Charles Duhigg's fruitful investigative summer appears to be getting results. He reports today in The New York Times that the EPA will investigate anew the chemical atrazine, a weedkiller that has been increasingly showing up in drinking... Continue reading

6. The Audit

   Detroit News on the Downside of the 401(k)

   October 7, 2009 05:49 PM

   With all the turmoil in the stock market over the last couple of years—well, make that the last twelve years or so—it's a good time to look at the toll it's taken on the country's primary private retirement system: the... Continue reading

7. The Audit

   Miami Herald Gets a Deserved Pat on the Back

   October 7, 2009 11:59 AM

   Congrats to Jack Dolan, Matthew Haggman, and Rob Barry of The Miami Herarld for winning first place in the the Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism put out by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business... Continue reading

8. The Audit

   The Journal Inside the Hilton Grand Jury

   October 7, 2009 09:53 AM

   The Journal has some very good reporting today on a scandal in the normally-staid chain-hotel business (part of which I wrote about there for a few years). Starwood, which owns Sheraton, W, Westin, and the like, has been accusing... Continue reading

9. The Audit

   Tuesday Links: Bloomberg v. Fed, Hypothermia, The Economist

   October 6, 2009 05:43 PM

   Bloomberg News continues its battle to let a little sunshine in on what the Federal Reserve is doing to bail out the financial system. The Fed is appealing Bloomberg's August victory in U.S. District Court, which said the Fed... Continue reading

10. The Audit

    Nonsense at Newsweek on Overdrafts

    October 6, 2009 04:14 PM

    Steve Tuttle of Newsweek has one of the worst columns I've seen in a good long time, arguing "Why Banks Should Charge Hefty Overdraft Fees." Really. This is one of those standard-issue John Stossel-wannabe rants about personal responsibility and... Continue reading

11. The Audit

    NYT and Frontline Tag-Team Prepaid Debit Cards

    October 6, 2009 10:58 AM

    The New York Times and PBS's Frontline have a terrific story this morning on prepaid debit cards, yet another way the financial-services industry is screwing consumers, especially poor ones. This piece is just really well done, the second... Continue reading

12. The Audit

    Monday Links: Pew, Murdoch, and Treasury Lies

    October 5, 2009 07:28 PM

    Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism found, unsurprisingly, that media coverage of financial issues and business was overwhelmingly focused on Wall Street, banks, and the government response to the crisis. Just 5 percent looked at the fortunes of workaday... Continue reading

13. The Audit

    More on Measuring Too Big to Fail

    October 5, 2009 05:22 PM

    Felix Salmon criticizes the Gretchen Morgenson piece on Dean Baker and Too Big to Fail, writing that the dollars talked about are benefits to the banks, not direct costs to the government. My reading of Morgenson and Baker... Continue reading

14. The Audit

    NYT is Excellent on Private-Equity

    October 5, 2009 03:12 PM

    If you've been wondering what ever happened to high-flying private-equity, whose ever-bigger and ever-more-debt-laden deals dominated financial-press headlines in 2006 and 2007, but whose now-troubled deals have often been sort of put in the background by other financial crisis news,... Continue reading

15. The Audit

    Measuring the Ongoing Cost of Too Big to Fail

    October 5, 2009 10:21 AM

    I haven't seen anyone try to estimate the implicit subsidy taxpayers provide megabanks because of Too Big to Fail policies. So it's nice to see Gretchen Morgenson column yesterday in the Times reporting on Dean Baker's stab at... Continue reading

16. The Audit

    Friday Links: Wolff, Shirky, Veterans for Socialism

    October 2, 2009 06:45 PM

    Michael Wolff, whose Newser depends on free news for its existence, rips Rupert Murdoch in Vanity Fair for planning to charge online, rightly pointing out he's been a failure in online media. But in so doing Wolff writes this:... Continue reading

17. The Audit

    Hiltzik With a Reality Check on Tort Reform

    October 2, 2009 04:11 PM

    Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times has a helpful column cutting through some of the noise in the health-care debate on tort reform. Hiltzik isn't the first to point out that malpractice litigation and so-called defensive medicine aren't... Continue reading

18. The Audit

    Norris Asks Why Cash Subsidizes Plastic

    October 2, 2009 10:09 AM

    Floyd Norris raises a very good point in his column today on merchant credit-card fees: Why do we have a system that has cash buyers, who tend to be poorer, subsidizing credit and debit-card purchasers, who tend to be... Continue reading

19. The Audit

    Good Show by the Journal Today

    October 1, 2009 03:15 PM

    Dean Starkman tipped his hat to a Wall Street Journal story this morning on Detroit, part of a string of good urban-affairs reporting he's noticed there recently. More broadly, today's copy of the Journal is just a really good... Continue reading

20. The Audit

    Buy a Kindle, Get the Times for Free

    October 1, 2009 11:56 AM

    A Friend of The Audit passed us an email he got from The New York Times offering a package deal of a Kindle DX, a Kindle subscription to the Times. To seal the deal, the Times helpfully throws in an... Continue reading

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