Bloomberg: Governments Still Gambling on Derivatives

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 26, 2008 at 08:59 AM

Check out this Bloomberg story on a Pennsylvania county getting into derivatives to help balance its budget. The interest-rate swaps,... More

LAT Looks Under the New Century Rock

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 26, 2008 at 08:25 AM

The Los Angeles Times has a good investigation of questionable stock sales at New Century Financial, which was one of... More

The Story of the Small Banks

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 25, 2008 at 04:04 PM

The Washington Monthly has a good story looking at the successes of community banks, which are in pretty good shape... More

BusinessWeek Exposes the New Subprime

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 25, 2008 at 12:14 PM

I’ve got to applaud BusinessWeek for its aggressive investigation of dirty subprime lenders getting back into the mortgage game with... More

Slate on Predatory Lending

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 25, 2008 at 09:52 AM

Slate has a nice, if a bit too easy, piece focusing on the predatory lending that played a huge role... More

Heds Up, Heds Down

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 25, 2008 at 09:14 AM

Headline of the Day, from the Journal editorial page: "Why Don't We Hang Pirates Anymore?" Worst Headline of the Day,... More

It’s Turkey Time. Gobble Gobble

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 25, 2008 at 08:57 AM

I like this Allan Sloan column in the Washington Post looking back at the worst "turkeys" of the year. Topping... More

Sorkin Channels Wall Street

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 25, 2008 at 08:29 AM

Andrew Ross Sorkin in today’s New York Times lets Wall Street CEOs (of all people) snipe anonymously at Tim Geithner,... More

The Times Is Also Right on Rubin

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 24, 2008 at 03:56 PM

Speaking of Robert Rubin, The New York Times yesterday had a great story on Citigroup and its atrocious risk-management policies.... More

Right on Rubin

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 24, 2008 at 09:43 AM

Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post points out that it's inexplicable that Robert Rubin hasn't had his reputation much more... More

WSJ Looks at the Morgan Stanley Panic

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 24, 2008 at 09:27 AM

The Journal’s big story of the day pieces together what happened to Morgan Stanley a couple of months ago when... More

The Times on the Fall of Luxury

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 24, 2008 at 09:07 AM

The Times has a serviceable story on the problems in the luxury part of the economy, but I just want... More

A Billion Here, a Trillion There

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 24, 2008 at 08:26 AM

President-Elect Obama is proposing an enormous stimulus package to save us all from Great Depression II, but just how much... More

WSJ on the Liver Merchants

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 21, 2008 at 10:17 AM

The Wall Street Journal has yet another good story in its series on nonprofit hospitals acting like for-profit companies. This... More

Audit Interview: John Ryan

“There was an even bigger story here about how money and influence shape policy”

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 21, 2008 at 10:10 AM

Many in the press believe they did a great job covering predatory mortgage lenders and their Wall Street partners in... More

Sulzbergers Face the Dividend Music

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 21, 2008 at 09:26 AM

The New York Times Company finally faced up to reality yesterday and slashed its dividend. It’s something it should have... More

Look Out Below!

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 21, 2008 at 08:58 AM

The brief recovery in the credit markets caused by the government bailout is officially history. The Journal continues its good... More

Somebody’s Wrong on Citi

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 21, 2008 at 08:25 AM

The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times both have scoops this morning on what Citi is planning to... More

A Roundup of the Wreckage

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 20, 2008 at 09:59 AM

With yet another stock-market plunge yesterday, the papers all have their follow stories about the bleakness. Barry Ritholtz over at... More

WSJ: A Novel Tack by Mortgage Firms

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 20, 2008 at 09:18 AM

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting report on mortgage firms slashing troubled borrowers’ principal, rather than foreclosing on them.... More