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Articles by Ryan Chittum | Email the Author

 

1. The Audit

   Audit Notes: The Newsday 35, WSJ Sun, Davos

   January 26, 2010 07:32 PM

   The New York Observer's John Koblin has had a busy day. First he broke a story on Newsday's paywall, which went up in October and has since lured just thirty-five subscribers. It's unsurprising that the number is low, but... Continue reading

2. The Audit

   Revisiting the SIGTARP AIG Investigation

   January 26, 2010 12:03 PM

   The AIG backdoor-bailout story continues to build, with the TARP special inspector general now re-opening an investigation into the matter. Emphasis on "re-opening." The SIGTARP, Neil Barofsky, released a report in November on this very thing. You'd think The Wall... Continue reading

3. The Audit

   Audit Notes: Counterparties Relevant, Goldman/AIG, Beck on Stocks

   January 26, 2010 12:32 AM

   We've been asking this question for a few months now: Why did Tim Geithner tell the TARP special inspector general that the "the financial condition of the counterparties was not a relevant factor" in the $180... Continue reading

4. The Audit

   Steve Jobs, Holy Moses

   January 25, 2010 08:14 PM

   Moses has been in the news a lot lately thanks to that more-modern oracle over at 1 Infinite Loop: Steve Jobs. Apple's impending tablet has been a favorite of lede and headline writers for a good month or more. The... Continue reading

5. The Audit

   The Press Angle of the Fed’s Backdoor-Bailout Cover-up

   January 25, 2010 12:08 PM

   Whatever Tim Geithner's New York Fed was trying to hide in the AIG backdoor bailout was so volatile it was deemed worthy of national-security-like classification, and the Fed reacted to media FOIA requests for information by withholding more information. Reuters,<a... Continue reading

6. The Audit

   Blowing Up at the Murdoch Journal

   January 22, 2010 04:44 PM

   Barry Ritholtz rips The Wall Street Journal a new one today, saying that "Under Murdoch, the paper has become politicized to the point of losing a significant portion of its value." What set him off? The headline on the... Continue reading

7. The Audit

   What Does Tim Geithner Really Think About the Volcker Rule?

   January 22, 2010 11:26 AM

   The New York Times, in a story about the sudden, somewhat shocking ascendance in the Obama orbit of the long-ignored Paul Volcker, gives voice to speculation that Tim Geithner's power is on the wane and that he may not... Continue reading

8. The Audit

   Obama (Finally) Gets Tough on Wall Street

   January 21, 2010 09:56 AM

   In stunning news this morning, President Obama has reversed course and will propose a kind of Glass-Steagall II, as well as some kind of provision to rein in too-big-to-fail banks. Make no mistake about, this is a massive story. You'd... Continue reading

9. The Audit

   Audit Notes: A Tax a Reaganite Can Love, Cramer, Mad Max

   January 21, 2010 12:12 AM

   David Stockman, who was in the Reagan cabinet as budget director, comes out swinging for a too-big-to-fail bank tax in a terrific New York Times op-ed: In supplying the banks with free deposit money (effectively, zero-interest loans), the savers... Continue reading

10. The Audit

    Bloomberg Punctures the Fed’s French Excuse

    January 20, 2010 08:40 PM

    Bloomberg advances the AIG/French-banks story today quite a little bit. That's the one where the Fed said it had to pay 100 percent on those toxic swaps because the banks said they would be violating French law if they... Continue reading

11. The Audit

    The NYT Will Charge Online

    January 20, 2010 11:01 AM

    It's official. The New York Times says it will stop giving away its expensive-to-produce paper online and institute a metered model a la the Financial Times Web site. The Audit has called for this many times and is... Continue reading

12. The Audit

    Audit Notes: FCIC’s Missing Media, What Crisis?, L’Affaire AIG

    January 19, 2010 06:43 PM

    What did we miss as press coverage of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission fizzled last week? On Friday, we pointed out the dearth of reporting on the state-regulators' testimony. But Greg Kaufman of The Nation was there and... Continue reading

13. The Audit

    Citi Not Quite As Awful As Last Year, Says Dow Jones

    January 19, 2010 01:00 PM

    Here's a strange Wall Street Journal headline (of a Dow Jones Newswires story): "Citi Loss Narrows." Yeah—to $7.6 billion. Is the fact that it lost fewer billions than it did a year ago really your lede? Well, it leads... Continue reading

14. The Audit

    The WSJ on Another Junk-Debt Boom

    January 19, 2010 11:09 AM

    The bubble is back. If you hadn't already figured that out, that's the lesson from The Wall Street Journal's excellent story this morning on how investors are flooding junk bonds as if the last two-and-a-half years hadn't happened. Back... Continue reading

15. The Audit

    Audit Notes: Ignoring State Regs, Busy Bhatia, Volcker Vacuum

    January 15, 2010 06:38 PM

    The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission talked to state regulators—the only ones with credibility on the predatory-lending issue and you might say the crisis generally—and the business press barely even notices. Of course they wouldn't! At least the Journal gave them... Continue reading

16. The Audit

    A WSJ Story Shows TBTF Effects on the Market

    January 15, 2010 04:18 PM

    The Wall Street Journal is excellent today to spotlight a sudden jump in ARM interest rates on New Year's Eve and what it means about the way floating rates are calculated. This is arcane but important stuff. The problem... Continue reading

17. The Audit

    Steven Pearlstein: Then and Now

    January 15, 2010 10:11 AM

    What a difference a year makes! Here's the Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein last February: These guys won’t be happy until the government agrees to relieve them of every last one of their lousy loans and investments at inflated prices,... Continue reading

18. The Audit

    Audit Notes: Goldie’s AIG CDS, Smarter Readers, Adversarial Stance

    January 14, 2010 07:46 PM

    James Keller has an interesting post over at RealClearMarkets on the Goldman Sachs/AIG controversy, which he says is "Likely Worse Than You Think." Keller questions whether Goldman sold billions of dollars worth of credit-default protection it had bought on... Continue reading

19. The Audit

    Parsing the Latest Online-Charging Poll

    January 14, 2010 03:49 PM

    There's yet another poll out there reporting the obvious: Most people say they won't pay for something they get for free now. Of course, it's about newspapers online. Harris Interactive found that 77 percent of U.S. adults say they... Continue reading

20. The Audit

    Revisiting the Journal’s TBTF Citi Story

    January 14, 2010 05:34 AM

    Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism calls me out for swallowing a Wall Street Journal story showing the Citigroup side in the too-big-to-fail debate. I think she's right. I didn't mean to imply that this was an excuse... Continue reading

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