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Articles by Ryan Chittum | Email the Author

 

1. The Audit

   GE Flubs a Pushback Against The New York Times

   March 31, 2011 11:24 AM

   General Electric went into full public-relations pushback mode after The New York Times's damaging story Friday on how it avoids paying U.S. corporate income taxes. But in doing so, the company, unable to get its own story straight,... Continue reading

2. The Audit

   Audit Notes: The Dimon Dare; Bloomberg’s Bank FOIA, Hamsters Attack!

   March 30, 2011 07:13 PM

   The Financial Times reports tonight that press favorite Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, that regulation is going to kill off our cherished too-big-to-fail banks, without which our economy would surely flourish... er, I mean perish: “If you want... Continue reading

3. The Audit

   SIGTARP Barofsky Skewers Treasury’s TARP Defense

   March 30, 2011 11:51 AM

   Today's must-read comes from Neil Barofsky, the TARP's special inspector general, in a New York Times op-ed. He guts the Obama administration argument, via Tim Geithner's Treasury Department, that the TARP has been a big success—a model bailout. From the... Continue reading

4. The Audit

   Audit Notes: Banks Mislead, The South and Unions, Shareholder Capitalism

   March 29, 2011 07:58 PM

   Adam Levitin of Georgetown Law and Credit Slips calls out the banking lobby for an "incredibly dishonest" attempt to mislead people into thinking debit-card interchange fees haven't been going up: Here's the slight-of-hand (sic): while the text of the... Continue reading

5. The Audit

   The WSJ Is Excellent On Bad Doctors

   March 29, 2011 01:41 PM

   The Wall Street Journal has been mining a massive Medicare database for an investigative series on Medicare—particularly its costs and abuses and how they reflect problems in the health care system in general. Today it adds a tough page-one... Continue reading

6. The Audit

   NYT Follows Walmart’s Weird OSHA Fight

   March 28, 2011 02:40 PM

   The New York Times reported this weekend that a judge upheld $7,000 fine OSHA levied against Walmart for the trampling death of a worker a couple of years ago. Ho-hum. But what's interesting is how hard Walmart has fought... Continue reading

7. The Audit

   Audit Notes: Mortgage Industry Conflicts of Interest Edition

   March 25, 2011 05:11 PM

   American Banker has a smart story on "How Not to Make a Mortgage Servicing Settlement," taking a look at the failed attorneys general settlement with Countrywide in 2008: The servicer conflict with second mortgages rears its head again... Continue reading

8. The Audit

   NYT Is Superb On General Electric’s Tax Avoidance

   March 25, 2011 02:14 PM

   (UPDATE: See my follow-up post on GE's poor PR response to the Times's story) The New York Times unloads a fantastic piece of reporting on General Electric and taxes this morning. It's an ugly portrait of GE and... Continue reading

9. The Audit

   Audit Notes: Sunday Papers, Weymouth’s Payday, Ayn Rand

   March 24, 2011 08:15 PM

   Ken Doctor has some interesting thoughts at the Nieman Journalism Lab on why The New York Times's paywall pricing steers print readers toward its Sunday edition: In fact, one impact could be to provide a boost to Sunday print... Continue reading

10. The Audit

    Better to Be Skeptical Than Sanguine About Soaring Tech Valuations (UPDATED)

    March 24, 2011 05:42 PM

    Henry Blodget's Business Insider runs a column today from a prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist arguing that there's no new Web bubble. Blodget says on Twitter: "Anyone who disagrees, please refute logic. Don't just huff and snort." Well, okay.... Continue reading

11. The Audit

    Harsh Justice for a Wall Street Thief

    March 24, 2011 03:25 PM

    David Weidner has an excellent column on the unfortunate case of Sergey Aleynikov, better known as the guy who stole computer code from Goldman Sachs. Last week, a federal judge handed Aleynikov got eight-plus years in prison for the... Continue reading

12. The Audit

    Audit Notes: Ma Bell II—Duopoly Edition

    March 23, 2011 11:51 PM

    The Financial Times's John Gapper has an excellent column on why the AT&T's proposed deal for T-Mobile should be shot down. Again, unless it's forced to divest customers and assets, AT&T and Verizon would now dominate the cellphones with... Continue reading

13. The Audit

    Some Questions on the Debit-Reform Story

    March 23, 2011 07:38 PM

    It strikes me that this Wall Street Journal story on the banks' "strange bedfellows" opposing debit-card rules probably should have explored that oddity a bit more. A new rule would slash the debit card fees banks get from each... Continue reading

14. The Audit

    WSJ: Federal Regulator Bares Fangs At Wall Street

    March 23, 2011 06:11 AM

    The Wall Street Journal has a reports this morning that federal regulators are playing smashmouth with Wall Street over their toxic products, accusing them of "misrepresenting the risks of the bonds" and causing "the collapse of five institutions." I'll... Continue reading

15. The Audit

    Audit Notes: The Fed and Labor, Revolving Door Watch, Bank Dividends

    March 22, 2011 08:24 PM

    Mike Konczal, aka Rortybomb, has a very interesting post asking questions about the impact of Federal Reserve policies have had on wage stagnation. He finds a 2005 paper that examined the Fed's paranoia about wage inflation via two decades... Continue reading

16. The Audit

    AT&T’s Cellphone Industry Rollup Gets Second-Day Scrutiny

    March 22, 2011 01:28 PM

    The business press continues to be skeptical in its second-day coverage of AT&T's $39 billion deal for T-Mobile. That's a good thing. The New York Times's headline all but says the deal would be bad for consumers: For... Continue reading

17. The Audit

    Good Consolidation Coverage for a Change on AT&T Deal

    March 21, 2011 07:41 PM

    Fortune's Seth Weintraub pulls a four-year-old Stephen Colbert clip that's as good a place as any to kick off a discussion of AT&T's proposed $39 billion deal for T-Mobile. Colbert's... Continue reading

18. The Audit

    Supremes Rule for Bloomberg Over the Banks

    March 21, 2011 11:45 AM

    Chalk one up for the people's right to know over the bank arm of the government's right to spend our money unchecked. The Supreme Court rejected the too-big-to-fail banks' appeal of a federal court ruling forcing the Federal Reserve... Continue reading

19. The Audit

    The New York Times Paywall Looks Good

    March 17, 2011 12:32 PM

    The New York Times paywall is here, and it's about time. Don't ask me why it took so long and why it cost $40 million to build, the point is after a decade and a half of giving... Continue reading

20. The Audit

    The Journal Shines a Light on Modern Debtors’ Prisons

    March 17, 2011 11:30 AM

    The Wall Street Journal has an excellent story today reporting on the country's modern-day debtors' prisons, which I'd thought were done away with here two centuries ago. Jessica Silver-Greenberg does some superb enterprise reporting, working with what little data... Continue reading

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