The Audit

Audit Notes: Toxic Assets, Foreclosure Mills, SEC (Finally) Looking at CDOs

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 10, 2011 at 12:20 AM

What ever happened to that pile of toxic assets that the banks were sitting on? Wall Street Journal reporter Michael... More

The Twitter, Facebook, Groupon, Huffington Post Bubble

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 9, 2011 at 11:05 PM

Still think there's not a Web 2.0 bubble going on? The Wall Street Journal reports tonight that Twitter is now... More

Bloomberg and BusinessWeek’s Problematic WikiLeaks Story

Red flags aflutter as the news outfit runs with seriously questionable evidence

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 9, 2011 at 07:02 PM

How many red flags can we count in this Bloomberg BusinessWeek piece on WikiLeaks? First there's the headline: Is Wikileaks... More

The “Can’t Find Workers” Meme Hits Germany

NYT & Co. channel the Chamber as a wage-hike solution goes unmentioned

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 9, 2011 at 03:15 AM

If there's an oh-so-contrarian thesis that really grates right now, it's the one that businesses just can't seem to find... More

Playing Politics With Mr. Market

A WSJ columnist slaps Obama for “his” seven-week bear market two years ago

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 8, 2011 at 08:26 PM

There's a long and boring history of hacks, typically on the right, blaming or crediting presidents for whatever the stock... More

Incomplete Stories on Licensing Workers

The rise of a service-based economy implies a natural rise in occupational licensing

By Felix Salmon   Feb 8, 2011 at 05:14 PM

Stephanie Simon's WSJ article on the rise of jobs needing a license of some description has resulted in a predictable... More

Bloomberg Markets Finds the Rich Taking From the Poor

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 8, 2011 at 11:52 AM

Bloomberg Markets has a terrific investigation into how a federal program meant to spur redevelopment in poor areas is funneling... More

Audit Notes: A Disney Delivery, Tribes and Payday Loans, HuffPo/AOL

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 7, 2011 at 06:57 PM

The New York Times reports that Disney is trying to capitalize on the massive baby market by infiltrating the hospital... More

The Huffington Post’s Tainted Money

The befuddled legacy customers of AOL fund a bubble-era premium for Arianna & Company

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 7, 2011 at 05:12 PM

Say what you will about Arianna Huffington's decision to sell out to AOL—and we will below—she's no dummy. Of the... More

Bloomberg Examines Louisiana’s Laissez-Faire Oil Regulators

Spills go unpenalized 99 percent of the time and the state’s fines are a joke

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 4, 2011 at 12:13 PM

Bloomberg has an excellent investigation into Louisiana's oil regulators, finding that the state fines oil companies for oil spill less... More

Audit Notes: It’s Wall Street’s Deficit, Dimon Steps In It, Red-Faced Mortgage Bankers

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 3, 2011 at 07:45 PM

Simon Johnson looks at the "Ruinous Fiscal Impact of Big Banks" over at The New York Times's Economix blog: First,... More

WSJ on Harry Markopolos’ Whistleblowing Shell Companies

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 3, 2011 at 12:04 PM

The Wall Street Journal has a very interesting scoop this morning on a lawsuit accusing banks of gouging pensioners and... More

Beware the WSJ’s Pay Statistics

By Felix Salmon   Feb 3, 2011 at 10:00 AM

This is getting to be a habit: today's WSJ article claiming that Wall Street pay has hit a new record... More

Audit Notes: Hacked Off Tabs, A Mirage Economy, Wall Street’s Record Pay

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 2, 2011 at 07:34 PM

The New York Times has another interesting story on News Corporation and its hacking scandal, this time reporting on a... More

Leonhardt’s Good Look at the Corporate Tax Landscape

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 2, 2011 at 06:27 PM

David Leonhardt gives us a nice roundup of the corporate-tax issue, which you're bound to be hearing a lot more... More