Economic Crisis

  1. August 15, 2011 08:15 PM

    Audit Notes: One Termer, HAMP Dwindles, The Crisis Narrative Shift

    By Ryan Chittum

    These two graphs from an NYT story this weekend pretty much show why Barack Obama is going to be a one-termer:

    Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Plouffe, and his chief of staff, William M. Daley, want him to maintain a pragmatic strategy of appealing to independent voters by advocating ideas that can pass Congress, even if they may not...

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  2. August 15, 2011 05:55 PM

    The Free Press Probes Fannie and Freddie

    The giant bailout recipients are dumping inventory in Detroit and pushing foreclosures over modifications

    By Ryan Chittum

    A Detroit Free Press investigation raises some interesting questions about why government-owned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are pushing foreclosures over banks' objections and whether they're getting taxpayers a good deal on foreclosure sales for their taxpayer benefactors.

    The paper's Jennifer Dixon got hold of internal records showing that Fannie and Freddie are pushing bank servicers to foreclose on...

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  3. August 15, 2011 10:55 AM

    Feces, Fascists, and Michael Lewis

    A flop from the best writer in financial journalism

    By Felix Salmon

    Kevin Drum doesn’t think much of Michael Lewis’s latest European dispatch for Vanity Fair — and neither do I. There’s precisely one thought-provoking paragraph in the entire 9,600-word article:

    One view of the European debt crisis—the Greek street view—is that it is an elaborate attempt by the German government on behalf of its banks to get their money...

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  4. August 12, 2011 04:14 PM

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

    By Ryan Chittum

    Bloomberg News revisits JPMorgan Chase's screwing of Jefferson County, Alabama, as the county debates whether to file for bankruptcy because of awful deals its politicians made after getting millions of dollars in bribes from JPMorgan:

    JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s Charles LeCroy said the key to landing bond deals in Jefferson County, Alabama, was finding out whom to pay...

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  5. August 11, 2011 06:40 PM

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

    By Ryan Chittum

    Lots of people are linking the Brokers With Hands On Their Faces Blog in the midst of the market turmoil of the last few days. It's a nifty bit of media criticism.

    My former colleague Elinore Longobardi wrote about the media's penchantfor glum-trader pictures back in 2008:

    Across the financial press, we see not only too many...

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  6. August 10, 2011 06:17 PM

    SmartMoney Makes a Hash of the Downgrade

    Says borrowers face higher rates, despite sinking Treasury yields

    By Ryan Chittum

    Speaking of the Journal overhyping the S&P; downgrade of U.S. Treasurys, its sister magazine SmartMoney has a doozy of a personal-finance piece out today that trips all over itself.

    Here's the headline:

    Post-Downgrade, Higher Rates for Borrowers

    Treasurys have fallen sharply since the downgrade, so why would borrowers rates be going up? The story can't even make it...

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  7. August 10, 2011 02:44 PM

    The Journal Hypes the Downgrade

    A three-day-old story gets the overkill treatment

    By Ryan Chittum

    That Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. from AAA to AA+ is a big story no doubt. But The Wall Street Journal on Monday went overboard, devoting almost all of the first seven pages of the paper and a good chunk of the Money & Investing section to the downgrade, which happened three days earlier.

    Bannered across six columns Continue reading

  8. August 9, 2011 07:35 PM

    Audit Notes: Murdoch’s Board, Hedge Funds Selling

    By Ryan Chittum

    How awful is News Corporation's corporate governance (among other things)?

    Bloomberg News on Viet Dinh, the guy who wrote the Patriot Act:

    Dinh, 43, is point man between the independent board members and a panel that New York-based News Corp. (NWS) created to cooperate with authorities probing phone hacking by the defunct News of the World tabloid and...

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  9. August 9, 2011 04:54 PM

    The Long Crisis

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

    By Ryan Chittum

    The Wall Street Journal's new Money & Investing chief, Francesco Guerrera, has an awfully narrow perspective about "Why This Crisis Differs From the 2008 Version."

    First, as an aside, it's worth noting that The Wall Street Journal is calling this a "crisis." That's no small thing.

    But this column is problematic. See this:

    Starting from the most obvious: The...

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  10. August 8, 2011 08:18 PM

    Market Mess

    Troubles pile up for the financial system and the economy

    By Ryan Chittum

    What happened in the markets today?

    Good luck figuring that out (you can't, really). Let's just say it's some combination of European collapse fears, U.S. too-big-to-fail collapse fears, recession fears, downgrade after-effect uncertainty and Lord knows what else—and roughly in that order. It's a complicated mix of factors and that should be reflected in tomorrow's coverage.

    A lot...

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  11. August 8, 2011 01:57 PM

    Blaming the Audience: Almost Always a Bad Idea

    By Ryan Chittum

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

    In a Tumblr post responding to the listener’s letter to Marketplace, Moore says she and the rest of the press are just reporting what powerful people are saying, whether you want to hear it or not.


    Well, take...

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  12. August 5, 2011 08:18 PM

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

    By Ryan Chittum

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

    The press reported late tonight that S&P; was about to downgrade the sovereign debt of the United States from AAA, despite last week's debt-ceiling deal—a momentous decision surely not taken lightly and...

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  13. August 4, 2011 08:03 PM

    Audit Notes: Panic in the Markets

    By Ryan Chittum

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 512 points today, some 4.3 percent, as panic takes hold in global markets. The 10-year Treasury bond's yield tumbled to 2.46 percent, signaling the bond vigilantes long warned about by folks like the Wall Street Journal editorial page are being utterly routed.

    Gillian Tett writes in the Financial Times that the crisis...

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  14. August 4, 2011 01:46 PM

    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

    American Banker has a terrific story on the revolving door, digging into the records of former Federal Housing Authority commissioner David Stevens, who left the FHA earlier this year to head the Mortgage Bankers Association.

    The Banker got hold of Stevens' emails through a Freedom of Information Act request and writes that they show how chummy he was with...

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