The Audit

Salvage the Financial Crisis Commission With a Document Dump

By Felix Salmon   Dec 16, 2010 at 09:38 AM

Keith Hennessey, one of the four Republican commissioners on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, has helpfully provided a copy of... More

Pearlstein Takes On Google’s Threat to Competition

By Ryan Chittum   Dec 15, 2010 at 04:19 PM

The Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein takes up the Google monopoly case today with an excellent column in The Washington Post.... More

The WSJ Is Needlessly Skeptical of GM’s Deleveraging

By Felix Salmon   Dec 15, 2010 at 12:27 PM

Sharon Terlep's story on GM trying to pay down its debt is a great indicator of how the leverage-is-good meme... More

Most of the Press Misses Foreclosure Scandal News (UPDATED)

By Ryan Chittum   Dec 15, 2010 at 11:53 AM

Iowa's attorney general said yesterday that he will bring criminal charges over the foreclosure scandal. But most of the press... More

Audit Notes: Fallows on Orszag, The Atlantic in the Black, Google

By Ryan Chittum   Dec 14, 2010 at 11:51 PM

Obama cabinet official Peter Orszag took a spin through the revolving door and ended up in a million-dollar sinecure at... More

“Uncertainty” Trotted Out in the Journal

Business code for “we may not get our way”

By Ryan Chittum   Dec 14, 2010 at 11:12 AM

If there's one thing our titans of industry can't stand, it's uncertainty. We've seen that excuse trotted out over and... More

Audit Notes: Risky Business, Two Economies, Google and Monopoly

By Ryan Chittum   Dec 13, 2010 at 08:17 PM

The New York Times is good to keep an eye on signs of a return of risky lending. Today it... More

Bloomberg Poll: Stick It to Wall Street

By Ryan Chittum   Dec 13, 2010 at 07:04 PM

Bloomberg News got some stunning numbers polling Americans on whether big bonuses should be banned at Wall Street's bailout recipients,... More

Google’s Search Dominance Comes In Handy for Its Other Businesses

The Wall Street Journal looks at a key competitive issue on the Web.

By Ryan Chittum   Dec 13, 2010 at 11:46 AM

Google has a near-monopoly on search in the U.S. It uses that dominant position to boost its other businesses at... More

The NYT’s Story Takes On the Derivatives Cartel

By Felix Salmon   Dec 13, 2010 at 02:33 AM

Back in September, the Chicago Fed hosted a symposium on OTC derivatives clearing. (Bear with me, don't fall asleep just... More

BusinessWeek Takes Road Already Traveled For Larry Fink Profile

By Felix Salmon   Dec 11, 2010 at 09:22 AM

Paul Kedrosky loves playing around with word clouds, and generated this one from the new Bloomberg Businessweek profile of Larry... More

Audit Notes: Herald-Tribune Investigation, Drumbeat, Nothing for the 99ers

By Ryan Chittum   Dec 10, 2010 at 07:01 PM

Down in Florida, State Farm has exited its coastal hurricane-insurance business, saying it couldn't afford it anymore. But thanks to... More

Goldman Exec’s “Rough Language” on Manipulating the Market

By Ryan Chittum   Dec 10, 2010 at 12:22 PM

Senator Carl Levin released emails yesterday showing a Goldman Sachs executive exhorting his traders to engineer a short-squeeze The Wall... More

NYT Finds a Mortgage-Mod Program That Works

By Felix Salmon   Dec 10, 2010 at 12:15 PM

David Bornstein has a great post about ESOP, an Ohio non-profit which acts as a middleman between homeowners and lenders,... More

Jobless Benefits Extension Will Reduce Unemployment, Not Increase It

Contra a WSJ columnist, the stimulative impact outweighs any negatives

By Felix Salmon   Dec 9, 2010 at 08:32 PM

Last week, when I wrote my post on how to boost employment, the list started off unambiguously: The first—and this... More