The Audit

Feces, Fascists, and Michael Lewis

A flop from the best writer in financial journalism

By Felix Salmon   Aug 15, 2011 at 10:55 AM

Kevin Drum doesn’t think much of Michael Lewis’s latest European dispatch for Vanity Fair — and neither do I. There’s... More

Audit Notes: JPMorgan’s Denuded County, Recession Watch, Reporting Rumors

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 12, 2011 at 04:14 PM

Bloomberg News revisits JPMorgan Chase's screwing of Jefferson County, Alabama, as the county debates whether to file for bankruptcy because... More

The WSJ Advances the Foreign-Exchange Gouging Story

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 12, 2011 at 02:10 PM

The Wall Street Journal has a good investigation that advances its series of stories looking at how banks, and particularly... More

Ace in the Hole (1951)

What a sixty-year-old noir can tell us about the Murdoch hacking scandal

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 12, 2011 at 11:15 AM

I’ve got Murdoch on the brain, but I couldn’t help thinking about the News of the World scandal while watching... More

Audit Notes: Picturing the Turmoil, WSJ vs. SmartMoney, Long Crisis

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 11, 2011 at 06:40 PM

Lots of people are linking the Brokers With Hands On Their Faces Blog in the midst of the market turmoil... More

SmartMoney Makes a Hash of the Downgrade

Says borrowers face higher rates, despite sinking Treasury yields

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 10, 2011 at 06:17 PM

Speaking of the Journal overhyping the S&P downgrade of U.S. Treasurys, its sister magazine SmartMoney has a doozy of a... More

The Journal Hypes the Downgrade

A three-day-old story gets the overkill treatment

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 10, 2011 at 02:44 PM

That Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. from AAA to AA+ is a big story no doubt. But The Wall... More

Audit Notes: Murdoch’s Board, Hedge Funds Selling

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 9, 2011 at 07:35 PM

How awful is News Corporation's corporate governance (among other things)? Bloomberg News on Viet Dinh, the guy who wrote the... More

The Long Crisis

The current tumult had its origins in the housing bust and Crash of 2008

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 9, 2011 at 04:54 PM

The Wall Street Journal's new Money & Investing chief, Francesco Guerrera, has an awfully narrow perspective about "Why This Crisis... More

Market Mess

Troubles pile up for the financial system and the economy

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 8, 2011 at 08:18 PM

What happened in the markets today? Good luck figuring that out (you can't, really). Let's just say it's some combination... More

Blaming the Audience: Almost Always a Bad Idea

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 8, 2011 at 01:57 PM

Marketplace's Heidi N. Moore lays into a listener for getting upset about Wall Street wanting to cut her entitlements. In... More

Audit Notes: Decline and Fall, Inflation Falls Again, Stress Indicators

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 5, 2011 at 08:18 PM

Your Decline and Fall Moment of the Day comes from Standard & Poor's, the credit-ratings firm that was a core... More

Audit Notes: Panic in the Markets

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 4, 2011 at 08:03 PM

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 512 points today, some 4.3 percent, as panic takes hold in global markets. The... More

Excellent Reporting on the Revolving Door By American Banker

Paper’s FOIA request shows a former FHA commish palling around with his future employer

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 4, 2011 at 01:46 PM

American Banker has a terrific story on the revolving door, digging into the records of former Federal Housing Authority commissioner... More

Audit Notes: Some Recovery, Tom Watson Profiled, Debt Myths

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 3, 2011 at 07:48 PM

Calculated Risk gives us four indicators the National Bureau of Economic Research uses to call and date recessions and recoveries.... More