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Economic Crisis

  1. March 19, 2010 10:30 AM

    Newser, The Fly on the Wall, and Aggregation

    By Ryan Chittum

    Rarely will you see an aggregator state his business model so forthrightly as Michael Wolff, founder of Newser, does today in discussing publishers charging for news:

    Here at Newser, we're particular eager for the charge walls to go up. You’ll be able to pay to spend more of your time and effort reading the New York Times, or you...

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  2. March 18, 2010 04:07 PM

    Another New York Judge Embarrasses the SEC

    By Ryan Chittum

    Will Judge William Pauley III now join Judge Jed Rakoff as one of the few heroes of the crisis?

    The Wall Street Journal makes an excellent catch today on a Pauley ruling that slapped down a chummy settlement between the SEC and Wall Street dismantling the separation of analysts from investment bankers imposed after the scandals of the previous...

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  3. March 18, 2010 10:15 AM

    Problems in an NYT Column

    The paper quoted anonymous sources on a Lehman whistleblower but offered no chance for a response

    By Ryan Chittum

    There are some real journalistic lapses in a New York Times column Tuesday that quoted anonymous sources about a Lehman Brothers whistleblower who tried to warn about the failing bank’s questionable accounting maneuvers, including one known as Repo 105.

    The problematic passage is here (emphasis mine):

    Lehman’s shell game didn’t come to light until June 2008, when a lower-level...

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  4. March 17, 2010 10:41 AM

    WSJ on a New Municipal “Move Your Money” Push

    By Ryan Chittum

    The Wall Street Journal has an excellent story this morning on a nascent trend among municipalities to put their money in small local banks—and to get tough with the big ones. It's the Move Your Money campaign for government.

    What's particularly relevant here is that it seems municipalities are rediscovering the fact that they have a lot of...

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  5. March 16, 2010 10:33 AM

    Leeway for Lehman Brothers

    Clusterstock's Carney trips all over himself arguing against prosecutions

    By Ryan Chittum

    I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that John Carney thinks "We Should Not Criminally Prosecute Lehman Executives." After all, this is someone who is a fan of insider trading, which he says "harms no one" and ought to be legalized, and who thinks the Community Reinvestment Act played a significant role in causing the crisis.

    Despite his...

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  6. March 15, 2010 04:20 PM

    Blogs Beat the Press on the Lehman Brothers Scandal

    By Ryan Chittum

    And just like that the Lehman Brothers scandal drops off the front pages. And not just the front pages—the section fronts, too.

    Say, we just learned about a $50 billion fraud on Thursday. Think there might be some newsworthy follow-ups here? Actually there are, and both The New York Times and Wall Street Journal have them, but they stuff...

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  7. March 15, 2010 12:57 PM

    China Stories: Good, Bad, Indifferent

    By Holly Yeager

    There’s unusual depth to today’s flurry of China coverage, and that’s a good thing—mostly.

    The New York Times gets the top seed in the bracket with a strongly reported look at China’s two-part strategy to maintain its export dominance: “fighting protectionism among its trade partners and holding down the value of its currency.”

    The piece is a good one...

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  8. March 15, 2010 04:44 AM

    Michael Lewis Drops Some Wisdom on Wall Street

    By Ryan Chittum

    I haven't read Michael Lewis's sure-to-be blockbuster The Big Short yet, but everybody ought to watch his appearance on 60 Minutes last night.

    The big news I guess would be that Lewis thinks Wall Street is "so disconnected from American life that it can't be sustained," in the words of Steve Kroft. "He thinks it may take a while, but...

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  9. March 12, 2010 01:38 PM

    The Lehman Scandal Breaks Wide Open

    By Ryan Chittum

    Will Repo 105 be the Chewco and JEDI of this crisis, and are we finally about to see some people on Wall Street go to jail?

    Yesterday's blockbuster 2,200 page report on Lehman Brothers by a court-appointed examiner shows Lehman Brothers executives moving $50 billion in toxic assets off-balance-sheet to deceive investors about its financial health. Finally it seems...

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  10. March 11, 2010 05:54 PM

    The Really Real S&P 500

    By Ryan Chittum

    I wrote a post called "The Real Dow" a couple of months ago about how the press almost always fails to put stock-returns in real-dollars context—something that fools people into thinking stocks are better investments than they really are. I mentioned transaction costs, but had limited data on them, so didn't emphasize them.

    But Bloomberg has them in Continue reading

  11. March 11, 2010 12:17 PM

    Gensler, Derivatives, and the Causes of the Crisis

    A Times story brings up several critical points for coverage of Wall Street and reform

    By Ryan Chittum

    The New York Times profiles Gary Gensler, the Goldman alum and former deregulation advocate who's now pursuing reform with the proverbial zeal of a convert.

    It's a good idea and mostly well-executed, but I want to look at a few subplots. Here's one quote up high regarding Gensler's push to regulate derivatives:

    Conrad P. Voldstad, the association’s chief executive,...

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  12. March 10, 2010 03:30 PM

    Cranston Attorney Now a Journal Star

    By Ryan Chittum

    It's probably a bad sign if you're a Rhode Island lawyer who's the subject of two page-one Wall Street Journal articles in three weeks.

    And so it is here. The paper got a two-fer on Joseph Caramadre, who makes money taking advantage of loopholes with dying people. Last month, the Journal reported that Caramadre paid terminally ill people to...

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  13. March 10, 2010 10:46 AM

    Times Peeks Inside CFPA Dealmaking

    By Ryan Chittum

    The New York Times has a great scoop on the making of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency bill sausage. No surprise: It's indigestion-inducing.

    The paper reports that Senator Bob Corker, the Republican who's proposing to neuter the agency by sticking it inside the Federal Reserve, is also doing a huge favor to his home-state cronies in the...

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  14. March 09, 2010 07:55 PM

    Big Money, No Funny

    By Ryan Chittum

    I get that everybody's trying to hop on the video bandwagon now since ad CPMs are so much higher than for non-video Web ads. The Wall Street Journal has The News Hub. The New York Times is planning a regular newscast.

    But do we really need The Bullet from The Big Money—"a fast, wry look at...

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