Author Archive

Articles by Ryan Chittum | Email the Author

 

1. The Audit

   Audit Notes: Citi’s Slaps, College Is Cheap, Voicemail Interception Compensation Scheme

   November 4, 2011 07:38 PM

   Bloomberg's Jonathan Weil has an excellent, tough column on the latest settlement between Citigroup and the SEC, which shows how "Citigroup Finds Obeying the Law Is Too Darn Hard": Five times since 2003 the Securities and Exchange Commission... Continue reading

2. The Audit

   The Wall Street Journal Pooh-Poohs Bank Transfer Day

   November 4, 2011 07:22 PM

   This Wall Street Journal story on Bank Transfer Day, the push to get people to move their money out of fee-gouging, too-big-to-fail banks and into credit unions and small local banks, is an exercise in point-missing. It says that... Continue reading

3. The Audit

   WSJ On MF Global and Window Dressing

   November 4, 2011 05:25 PM

   It looks like Jon Corzine's MF Global tried to hide how much risk it was taking on by temporarily lowering borrowing at the end of each quarter, a good Wall Street Journal story shows. This isn't a source-driven story.... Continue reading

4. The Audit

   Audit Notes: Toledo Blade Series, Chait on Pethokoukis, Censorship Inc.

   November 3, 2011 07:41 PM

   The Toledo Blade is running a very good series on middle class people descending into poverty. What I like about this particular installment is how the Blade's Tony Cook takes what for most reporters would be a challenge—finding people... Continue reading

5. The Audit

   Bernanke Calls for Government Spending and Much of the Press Ignores It (Again)

   November 3, 2011 05:50 PM

   Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke called for more fiscal stimulus yesterday in his most direct plea yet for the government to boost the stagnant economic recovery. Here's what Bernanke said: “We have taken a lot of actions,” Mr. Bernanke said... Continue reading

6. The Audit

   The Journal Fizzles on Occupy Oakland Protest

   November 3, 2011 03:10 PM

   Several thousand Occupy movement protestors shut down the Port of Oakland yesterday, a week after Oakland police attacked the protest with tear gas and, allegedly, flashbang grenades and rubber bullets. Big news story. On the Twitter, CUNY's C.W. Anderson <a... Continue reading

7. The Audit

   Bloomberg on How a European AIG Would Hit the U.S.

   November 2, 2011 06:57 PM

   Bloomberg News has an important report on how sovereign defaults in Europe could infect the U.S. banking system via ye olde credit-default swap market. Yalman Onaran reports that the too-big-to-fail U.S. banks are ratcheting up their exposure to a... Continue reading

8. The Audit

   Audit Notes: Bloomberg Goes Wallison, Friedman, Golden Parachutes

   November 1, 2011 07:48 PM

   Mayor Bloomberg is supposed to be the technocratic mayor of New York City—the anti-wingnut. So what's he doing saying things like this (emphasis mine): "I hear your complaints," Bloomberg said. "Some of them are totally unfounded. It was not... Continue reading

9. The Audit

   Subprime Déjà Vu

   November 1, 2011 07:20 PM

   In this market, the companies handing out loans make money whether you pay them back or not. Agents trick hard-luck, often ill-educated customers into predatory loan terms that are much worse than they agreed to with sky-high interest rates. One... Continue reading

10. The Audit

    More on the Myth of Income Equality

    October 31, 2011 02:34 PM

    James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute responds to my criticism of his misleading post on "why income inequality is a myth." At least Pethokoukis has walked it back a bit. A week ago, he wrote that... Continue reading

11. The Audit

    Audit Notes: The Occupy-Rwanda Connection, Reckless Blame, Jarvis For Dummies

    October 28, 2011 07:39 PM

    Speaking of Fort Smith's City Wire, the website reports on a talk by former Alltel CEO Scott Ford to the local Chamber of Commerce. Ford formed a coffee company that does business in Rwanda. That might at least... Continue reading

12. The Audit

    Flack-Driven Local Coverage of a Factory Closure Fails

    October 28, 2011 06:33 PM

    Whirpool is laying off more than a thousand employees in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and shipping the work to Mexico and two plants in the U.S. So how does the local paper, the Southwest Times Record, cover the exit of one... Continue reading

13. The Audit

    Weak Coverage of SEC Settlement With Wall Street’s Self-Regulator

    October 28, 2011 12:25 PM

    This morning's coverage of the SEC's settlement with Wall Street self-regulator FINRA is frustrating. We're told that FINRA, which was run at the time by now-SEC chief Mary Schapiro, misled the SEC by altering documents it sent the... Continue reading

14. The Audit

    Audit Notes: Debt Collector Scams, Occupy Oakland Coverage, Jest

    October 27, 2011 07:47 PM

    The Washington Post reports on two FTC complaints against California debt collector companies, which "highlight an increase in complaints about the debt-collection industry as the economy has soured. Consumers lodged about 140,000 complaints with the FTC about debt collectors... Continue reading

15. The Audit

    Cataloging the Banks’ Crimes and Misdeeds

    October 27, 2011 06:28 PM

    This excellent Daily Beast piece by Gary Rivlin catalogs the major crimes of the four biggest U.S. banks plus Goldman Sachs, a feat so daunting that the story runs more than 4,000 words on five pages—and there's not much... Continue reading

16. The Audit

    Audit Notes: More on Inequality, Les Hinton’s Memory

    October 26, 2011 06:36 PM

    The inequality I talked about earlier today has been caused on a couple of levels. While the market income of the top 1 percent has exploded, it has also paid lower tax rates on that windfall. James Kwak... Continue reading

17. The Audit

    The Myth of Income Equality, Courtesy of AEI

    October 26, 2011 05:31 PM

    This post by James Pethokoukis, who recently hopped over to AEI from Reuters, shows how to combine the worst tendencies of Slate (contrarian shtick), Business Insider (misleading, hyped headlines), and think tanks (paid-for spin), and puts it in... Continue reading

18. The Audit

    Austerity and Objectivity

    October 25, 2011 02:31 PM

    The top story in The Wall Street Journal today is interesting for what it says about how American papers are more willing to call it like they see it when they're writing outside the U.S. The piece focuses on... Continue reading

19. The Audit

    Audit Notes: Copying the NYT Paywall, WaMu, The 0.1 Percent

    October 24, 2011 06:16 PM

    Jeff Bercovici of Forbes responds to my post calling on papers to follow the NYT's lead on charging for news by noting that the Times is an exceptional paper and that others seem to be saying "they’re not sure... Continue reading

20. The Audit

    Newspaper Companies As Emblems of the 1 Percent

    October 24, 2011 04:32 PM

    "Gannett paper" has long been a pejorative in journalism circles. So how about "Gannett executive"? The nation's biggest newspaper chain has run its papers with threadbare newsrooms to keep profit margins extra-high for shareholders. When the newspaper industry hit the... Continue reading

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