The Audit

Audit Notes: HBGary Federal, Jeff Sachs Goes Off, Gaming Google

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 15, 2011 at 06:10 PM

ArsTechnica has a great ticktock on how the HBGary Federal scandal broke open, recounting how its CEO got into a... More

MIT Bloggers and Sorkin Take Down a Derivatives Study

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 15, 2011 at 12:45 PM

Andrew Ross Sorkin has a good column this morning exposing yet another misleading campaign affiliated with the Chamber of Commerce.... More

AOL’s HuffPo Premium Doesn’t Mean Much For the NYT

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 14, 2011 at 06:11 PM

Frederic Filloux has some harsh criticism of The Huffington Post's business model, calling it "a digital sandcastle." But what caught... More

The HBGary Federal Scandal

Many questions need answering as hackers shine a light on the private-security underworld

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 14, 2011 at 03:15 PM

I asked the press on Friday to quickly get on the disturbing story of HBGary Federal et al on Friday.... More

Audit Notes: HBGary Federal, Bank CEOs Stock Sales, Adam Gopnik

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 11, 2011 at 09:42 PM

This is one of the more disturbing stories I've read in a while. So far, no one in the mainstream... More

Amazon Bolts Texas’s “Unfavorable Regulatory Environment”

But there’s more to the story than we get from the AP and The Dallas Morning News

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 11, 2011 at 02:07 PM

The Associated Press reports that Amazon is closing its Texas warehouse due to—and this is a direct Amazon quote—the state's... More

Audit Notes: NFL Hell, No Inflation Here, Fraud Without Fraudsters

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 10, 2011 at 08:56 PM

Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post has the column of the week, a righteous piece of outrage at the NFL... More

NYT Reports Bear Stearns Wasn’t Alone on Putbacks

Plus, Wall Street saw fraud signs, demanded money back, then kept buying loans

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 10, 2011 at 02:50 PM

The New York Times has a very good look today at what the Ambac lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase could mean... More

The WSJ’s Balanced Look at Muni Risk

And the FT adds some helpful data

By Felix Salmon   Feb 10, 2011 at 11:30 AM

The muni-market hearings in Washington today might be a bit of a snore, but Michael Corkery's long curtain-raiser for them... More

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