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Articles by Ryan Chittum | Email the Author

 

1. The Audit

   David Cay Johnston’s excellent corporate-welfare column

   June 5, 2012 03:08 PM

   Reuters's David Cay Johnston has a great column on corporate welfare that mixes reporting and analysis to show why subsidies for development are so problematic. Johnston looks at a proposal by mall heir Scott Congel to get New York... Continue reading

2. The Audit

   Audit Notes: seaside villas, paywall past, Citi fraud

   June 5, 2012 12:30 AM

   Line of the day goes to Bloomberg News for this gem from Robert Benmosche, CEO of government-owned AIG (emphasis mine): American International Group Inc. (AIG) Chief Executive Officer Robert Benmosche said Europe’s debt crisis shows governments worldwide must accept... Continue reading

3. The Audit

   Bank of America’s Merrill scandal reignites

   June 4, 2012 03:00 PM

   The New York Times's Gretchen Morgenson has a big story today on how Bank of America fooled shareholders into approving its ill-fated merger with Merrill Lynch. Former CEO Ken Lewis, the business genius who drove his bank into quasi-nationalization... Continue reading

4. The Audit

   Responding to Shirky on the Washington Post

   June 1, 2012 01:31 PM

   Thanks to Clay Shirky for responding to my piece on the financialization of the Washington Post Company, which during the financial crisis has handed more than a billion dollars back to shareholders via dividends and share buybacks while... Continue reading

5. The Audit

   Audit Notes: the rise of circulation, LAT’s Facebook trend, mobile ads

   May 31, 2012 08:05 PM

   This Ken Doctor piece on how circulation is becoming the most-important revenue stream at newspapers is a must-read: Unexpectedly, newspapers — of all things — are becoming the leaders in reader-supported media. As the public journalism movement (the enterprising... Continue reading

6. The Audit

   Amazon’s California tax squeeze

   May 31, 2012 11:18 AM

   Amazon's long run of not paying collecting state and local sales taxes is coming to an end as legislatures finally force the Internet retailer to compete on something of a level playing field with everyone else. But that doesn't mean... Continue reading

7. The Audit

   Audit Notes: Google’s stonewalling, Moody’s spin clinic, USDA mortgages

   May 30, 2012 09:48 PM

   This New York Times story is a few days old, but worth flagging. The paper reports on Google's roguish reaction to inquiries about the privacy violations of its Street View program, which was discovered to be collecting data from... Continue reading

8. The Audit

   Audit Notes: Facebook IPO edition

   May 30, 2012 06:50 AM

   Joe Nocera glosses over the problem with Facebook's IPO in arguing that we shouldn't care whether its shares plunged after they started trading. But let’s be honest. Were there really any long-term investors in Facebook that first day? Judging... Continue reading

9. The Audit

   The private-equity problem with Romney and GS Technologies (UPDATED)

   May 25, 2012 02:26 PM

   It's seriously grating to see an Eton and Oxford-educated ambassador's son who works for the Council on Foreign Relations rant about Obama's "populist" attack on private equity. That's Sebastian Mallaby, who takes to the Financial Times to defend... Continue reading

10. The Audit

    Sorkin’s Glass-Steagall straw man

    May 25, 2012 06:50 AM

    Here's the headline for Andrew Ross Sorkin's column on Tuesday about Glass-Steagall and the financial crisis: Reinstating an Old Rule Is Not a Cure for Crisis No kiddin'. Let's see what else isn't a "cure for crisis": —... Continue reading

11. The Audit

    Audit notes: Buffett on newspapers, Times-Picayune, SEC lets Lehman go

    May 24, 2012 05:59 PM

    This is the most hopeful thing I've read about the business of newspapers in a long, long time: I'll quote at length from Warren Buffett's letter to editors and publishers of his newly expanded portfolio of papers: Berkshire buys... Continue reading

12. The Audit

    Audit notes: No more daily in New Orleans, McClatchy, private equity

    May 24, 2012 12:21 AM

    If ever a town needed a newspaper, it's New Orleans. But David Carr reports that Newhouse is preparing big layoffs at the Times-Picayune, which will no longer be a daily newspaper. Newhouse Newspapers, which owns the Times-Picayune, will apparently... Continue reading

13. The Audit

    Facebook fiasco

    May 23, 2012 01:04 PM

    We're starting to get a better picture of what happened with Facebook on Friday and in the run-up to its IPO, and it's not pretty. The repercussions have already begun, with a class-action lawsuit already filed against Facebook and Wall... Continue reading

14. The Audit

    Audit notes: Facebook disclosure, Facebook value, soft corruption

    May 22, 2012 05:58 PM

    Business Insider's Henry Blodget, who knows a thing or two about analyst/IPO scandals, writes that Facebook and/or its bankers could be in trouble for not disclosing material information to the public about its financial health. Reuters has been reporting... Continue reading

15. The Audit

    Audit Notes: Facebook IPO edition

    May 21, 2012 05:03 PM

    I'm happy to say I was wrong (and Felix was right) in guessing that retail investors would jump into Facebook shares and push it significantly higher. The stock stayed even on Friday only with the massive support of... Continue reading

16. The Audit

    The Chicago Tribune lights up the flame-retardant industry

    May 21, 2012 11:07 AM

    A tremendous Chicago Tribune investigation into flame-retardant chemical manufacturers shows how they push their poisons on an unsuspecting public despite repeated findings that their products do nothing to prevent or delay fires. It's a sordid tale of powerful corporations,... Continue reading

17. The Audit

    A game of telephone fools the Times

    May 18, 2012 03:00 PM

    The New York Times posts a nasty correction on its Sunday op-ed by William Deresiewicz, who asserted that a study had found that 10 percent of people on Wall Street were "clinical psychopaths." That 10-percent-psycho baloney was the lead... Continue reading

18. The Audit

    Audit notes: Questions for JPMorgan, hindsight journalism, Ticketmaster

    May 17, 2012 06:11 PM

    ProPublica's Jesse Eisinger, in his NYT DealBook column, writes about what the press and the authorities should be asking about JPMorgan's $3 billion (and counting) loss: The first lesson of the financial crisis is not that the capital markets... Continue reading

19. The Audit

    The Facebook frenzy

    May 17, 2012 11:00 AM

    The Wall Street Journal's page-one Facebook IPO story does a good job of capturing some uncomfortable parallels to the dot.com bubble. The Journal profiles three investors to give us a feel for how people are thinking about the most... Continue reading

20. The Audit

    What’s the right price for ebooks? (updated)

    May 16, 2012 11:00 AM

    Author Chuck Windig, GigaOm's Mathew Ingram, and TechDirt's Mike Masnick all took on the question of ebook pricing recently, arguing that production costs (you know, minor details like advances, editors, etc.) don't or shouldn't factor into the end price. Ingram... Continue reading

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