GREAT MOMENTS IN CORPORATE WELFARE
Bridgewater Associates, $130 billion under management, takes its turn at the government teat: Bridgewater Associates, the world’s biggest hedge fund, intends to build a $750 million…
HOW ODD. IT’S AS IF THE RECESSION NEVER HAPPENED THERE.
What housing collapse? In Washington D.C., home prices are at all-time highs. I wonder why that could be. . . .
THE GSE’S CONTINUE TO DO THEIR PART TO HOLD BACK MORTGAGE LENDING
The GSE’s aren’t letting up on their mortgage-lending customers/adversaries: Fannie Mae asked banks to buy back about $14 billion of loans for the first half of…
YET ANOTHER DUMB IDEA FROM JOSEPH NOCERA
This time, he wants to know why there’s all this fuss about shareholder value: [I]n the Harvard Business Review, Jay W. Lorsch, a professor at Harvard…
IT’S OFFICIAL: THIS RECOVERY STINKS EVEN BY STINKY-RECOVERY STANDARDS
Even compared the kind of economic sluggishness that typically follows financial crises, this is one sluggish recovery: In a new research note, JPMorgan points out that…
GE EMPLOYEES NOT BEING NEARLY GRATEFUL ENOUGH TO THE WHITE HOUSE
Wow. Even employees of General Electric, the nearest thing to a business President Obama can actually bring himself to approve of (and one he’s singularly avoided…
ONE MARKET HAS MIRACULOUSLY DODGED THE AFTER-EFFECTS OF THE HOUSING BUST
From the Washington Post, the “Duh” headline of the month: Distressed properties aren’t a problem in the Washington area compared to the rest of the nation…
HOMEBUILDERS NOT DEAD, AFTER ALL
Fortune: the recovery in homebuilding has legs. . . . There’s a looming shortage of new homes in the U.S., and construction will have to ramp…
NEWS YOU WILL NOT HEAR FROM ELIZABETH WARREN
A new study finds that it wasn’t subprime borrowers who were most victimized by the non-traditional mortgages (with, say, low downpayments or teasers) that were dangled…
HUGH MCCOLL AND KEN LEWIS WEREN’T ANOMALIES, IT TURNS OUT
There must be something in the water in Charlotte. Even by the standards of executive-suite egotism, CEOs there tend to be power-obsessed megalomaniacs.