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Articles by Ryan Chittum | Email the Author

 

1. The Audit

   WSJ Looks Into the Woes at Calpers

   December 17, 2008 02:23 PM

   The Journal has a good story looking at the troubles at Calpers, the California state-pension system that's one of the biggest investors in the world. It was also one of the biggest real estate investors in the world, particularly... Continue reading

2. The Audit

   Bloomberg Stays on AIG

   December 17, 2008 10:09 AM

   Bloomberg reports that more questions are being raised about AIG's books. It says it may cost the insurer another $30 billion in writedowns. An examination of AIG’s credit-default swaps guaranteeing more than $300 billion of corporate loans, mortgages and... Continue reading

3. The Audit

   The Bright Side of Deflation, Part Two

   December 17, 2008 09:10 AM

   David Leonhardt of The New York Times also writes about falling prices today: The cost of fruits, vegetables, clothing and vehicles are all dropping. Housing prices have been falling for more than two years, and a barrel of... Continue reading

4. The Audit

   The Bright Side of Deflation

   December 17, 2008 08:33 AM

   David Lazarus has a nice column about wage stagnation in the Los Angeles Times, using the peg of falling prices to point out that wages have failed to keep pace with prices over the last thirty years. According to... Continue reading

5. The Audit

   A CDO Story for the Rest of Us

   December 16, 2008 11:00 AM

   The Washington Post goes long with a look at how the CDO market went bust. I know, I know. You can't bear to read anything else about collateralized-debt obligations. I sympathize! But it's worth a look-see. The story... Continue reading

6. The Audit

   WaPo’s Wrong Spin on Retail

   December 16, 2008 09:39 AM

   Here's an example of how not to write an economy story. The Washington Post this weekend reported on retail sales numbers, which were better than expected, meaning non-cataclysmic. But the Post spun the numbers with a headline that... Continue reading

7. The Audit

   GM Pencils, Part Two

   December 16, 2008 08:37 AM

   A reader, David Baggot, emailed me to point out that the Times story I liked yesterday about Detroit's extreme cost cutting was done better three weeks ago by the Journal. And he's right. The Journal story even... Continue reading

8. The Audit

   Detroit Now Reduced to Using Regular Pencils

   December 15, 2008 10:50 AM

   The Times has some amusing-if-pathetic details in its story on how the Big Three are cutting back to the bare bones on even mundane expenses, like using regular pencils instead of mechanical ones. Chrysler has closed cafeterias in some... Continue reading

9. The Audit

   MediaNews’ Busted Newspaper Bets

   December 15, 2008 09:50 AM

   The Times has a nice story on Dean Singleton's MediaNews and the problems it's facing in this atrocious time for newspapers. "In retrospect, the timing was not good," said Mr. Singleton, the head of and a major shareholder in... Continue reading

10. The Audit

    Bloomberg on Madoff’s Auditor

    December 15, 2008 09:08 AM

    Bloomberg does some basic legwork on the Bernard Madoff scandal and gets some great color out of it. One of the red flags some investors saw early was that this fund, which apparently had more than $50 billion in... Continue reading

11. The Audit

    WaPo: Bailout’s Pay Limits May Be Moot

    December 15, 2008 08:34 AM

    The Washington Post has a nice scoop today that the executive-pay provisions of the bailout law are basically unenforceable. But at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the provision, congressional aides said. The... Continue reading

12. The Audit

    WSJ: Tax-Lite Companies Want Tax-Heavy Bailouts

    December 12, 2008 10:43 AM

    The Journal does some good work in looking at some of the pigs lined up at the $700 billion TARP trough. It reports that life-insurance companies that barely pay any taxes are eager for their taxpayer-funded bailouts. For instance,... Continue reading

13. The Audit

    Fed Slaps Down Bloomberg FOIA

    December 12, 2008 09:25 AM

    Bloomberg keeps the heat on the Federal Reserve to disclose to whom it's given $2 trillion in loans. The news service sued last month to try to force the disclosure. But the Fed keeps stonewalling. The Fed responded... Continue reading

14. The Audit

    Audit Interview: Michael Hudson

    December 12, 2008 09:12 AM

    Lots of people have asked why the press didn't tell us loudly enough that the subprime train was a-comin'. But if you read the work of Michael Hudson, you'd have had a good idea of what was in store. Hudson,... Continue reading

15. The Audit

    Was Countrywide’s “Puffery” Criminal?

    December 12, 2008 08:29 AM

    Floyd Norris in the NYT points out something worth watching: a lawsuit against Countrywide Financial that's been allowed to go forward by a federal judge in California. The Countrywide complaint, she wrote, presents “the extraordinary case where a company’s... Continue reading

16. The Audit

    NYT Lets Treasury Off Too Easy

    December 11, 2008 10:05 AM

    The Times lets Neel Kashkari, the Treasury's bailout guy, off the hook in a news story on congressional hearings yesterday. Congress wants bailout funds to be accompanied by serious disclosure rules and a mandate that banks actually lend the... Continue reading

17. The Audit

    Portfolio Pries Into Pequot

    December 11, 2008 09:37 AM

    Portfolio's Scot Paltrow has a very interesting story on some doings between Pequot Capital and one of the firm's former employees, who had funneled inside information to it about Microsoft several years ago, causing an SEC investigation. Divorce-court proceedings... Continue reading

18. The Audit

    The Times Looks at Bush’s Homeowner Advocate

    December 11, 2008 08:33 AM

    The New York Times takes a nuanced look at FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair this morning. She's the Bush administration member who's been loudest about the need to bail out homeowners since we're bailing out Wall Street with trillions of... Continue reading

19. The Audit

    $73 an Hour Doesn’t Add Up

    December 10, 2008 10:22 AM

    I like David Leonhardt's column this morning in the Times, debunking the $73 figure widely thrown around as what the average Big Three employee rakes in an hour. It's used as a bludgeon by anti-labor forces to say that... Continue reading

20. The Audit

    Journal’s Legg Mason “Get”

    December 10, 2008 09:37 AM

    The Journal scores an interview with Legg Mason's Bill Miller, a legendary investor who's run into a brick wall in the financial crisis, and pulls off a nice profile. Here's the old Miller: Fueled by winning bets on stocks... Continue reading

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