I should’ve posted this last night, but still, there’s some good stuff in here, especially the segment with Jerry Seib, where he’s talking about governments at the local, state and even federal level being forced to cut services. You are going to hear more and more about this as time goes on, unless of course the Obama administration comes up with a full-employment plan that blows out the government coffers.
And, personally, that Tiger Woods/Nike ad put it over the top for me: I’m done with Tiger Woods forever.
- Deflationary winds kicking up? Core CPI slips into negative territory for first time since 1982. “It’s hard to overlook the fat that negative monthly readings for this data series are extraordinary rare,” James Picerno says. “For the sake of economic stability, let’s hope it stays that way.”
- With Goldman Sachs’ (GS) image under attack, spokesman Lucas van Praag’s tough talk has only served to “alienate potential allies and enablers in the press and project a supercilious institutional arrogance which only serves to confirm the unflattering portrayals offered up by the firm’s detractors,” the Epicurean Dealmaker blog says.
- “High volatility in sentiment is a clear sign of utter confusion on the part of market participants and creates a landscape that is ripe for dramatic moves in either direction,” the Pragmatic Capitalist writes.
- Fed’s discount rate hike has more to do with technical reasons than a policy shift, former Dallas Fed president Bob McTeer says.
- Barclays scooped up a lot of talent throughout the financial crisis, according to LinkedIn data.
- Matt Taibbi’s latest account of the financial crisis misses one key point that no one wants to talk about: we could be in a depression without government intervention, Andrew Leonard writes. Still, reflecting on current bank profits, banks’ resistance to regulation and inability of government to do anything about it, “I’m beginning to come around to the view that maybe it would have been more effective to just blow everything up and start all over.”
- Deal activity has gotten off to a sluggish start in 2010, but investment bankers remain busy keeping up with secondary offerings, DealBook reports.
- Bottom line to this economy recovery is job growth. “The good news is Washington is working on it,” S&P’s Howard Silverblatt says. “The bad news is Washington is working on it.”
- Record bank profits may be tough to come by as the Fed starts raising rates.
- Tiger made the world stop from 11:00 to 11:15 this morning. How’d he do? Bill Simmons says the press conference was “a borderline train wreck.”
It depends upon what the meaning of 'I need a job,' is.
So congratulations are in order for Charlie Gasparino, now over at Fox Business, who made something of a splash today breaking the news that notorious sex addict and onetime golfer Tiger Woods will be making a statement Friday regarding his return to the sport he loved.
Apparently Woods has been huddled with some of the PGA folks, working out exactly what to say in his speech. Seems to us that if Tiger’s struggling to strike just the right tone, he’d be best served by drawing inspiration from some of our nation’s great leaders.
There’s FDR’s first inaugural address. There’s JFK’s first inaugural address. There’s Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. But if none of those austere, historic speeches quite gets at what it is Woods wants to say, there’s still hope.
After all, there’s Bill Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky speech. There’s Eliot Spitzer’s resignation speech. There’s Jim McGreevey’s resignation speech. There’s John Edwards’ interview on ABC, when he admitted to a “mistake” (a mistake which, we must point out, has a name.) There’s Mark Sanford’s “Appalachian Trail” speech. There’s such a rich pantheon of adulterers from which to draw upon.
And if none of that works, well, he could always turn to Bagger Vance, right? Go ahead, Tiger, find your one true, authentic swing again, guy.
- Housing starts data offer mixed bag. “The good news is the excess housing inventory is being absorbed — a necessary step for housing (and the economy) to recover,” Calculated Risk says. “The bad news is economic growth will probably be sluggish — and unemployment elevated — until residential investment picks up.”
- Russell 2000 moves back above its 50-day moving average, while larger indexes still lagging, Bespoke Investment Group says. “Small caps will typically outperform in a rising market, and we’ve seen just that over the last few days.”
- Stimulus package celebrates one-year anniversary today. Obama defends the stimulus as he embarks on an effort to defend past and future economic programs, NYT reports.
- Fed officials last month were slightly more confident that the recovery was firming, WSJ reports. They also plotted an exit strategy that may include sales of the Fed’s mortgage holdings.
- Bloomberg details what Warren Buffett sold to buy Burlington Northern. (hat tip Abnormal Returns).
- Google (GOOG) might not be as immune to the weak economy as some think. Footnoted blogger Michelle Leder finds an interesting disclosure buried deep in GOOG’s 10-K filed late Friday: headcount actually shrunk last year for the first time since GOOG went public.
- Google got a bit too antsy with its Buzz launch, Michael Arrington writes. “The idea of jumpstarting the process and building the Google social graph right now was too tempting to Google, and they pressed too hard,” Arrington says. “Maybe some other company, seeing the results, will avoid this mistake in the future.”
- While we’re on the Google theme, when will the company actually make money off YouTube? MediaMemo blogger Peter Kafka weighs in, noting that time may come soon than later. “From the outside we can see indicators that the site is at least getting more serious about getting more ad dollars out of more videos.”
- Twitter’s growth continues. Site generated 73.5M unique visitors last month, up 8% from the 65.2M that visited in December 2009, Digital Daily blogger John Paczkowski reports, citing comScore data. “That’s an impressive spike and one that continues a three-month streak of gains that began last November, after a worrisome period of stagnancy between September and October,” he says.
- Tiger Woods will finally face the music as he plans a press conference for Friday.
Posted by Paul Vignaon December 21, 2009 Economy, Markets /
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All right, Jackie, time to leverage that pair of twos.
A few weeks after Bernie Madoff got pinched, it occurred to me that this was a story that could define our times: a conniving hustler who promises easy money, doesn’t say how, has his clients salivating over fictitious profits, and has everybody else wondering how he does it, and hoping he’ll do it for them (there were, of course, a few people who questioned his methods and returns, but they were just jealous, just sore losers. No need to pay heed to them.)
I pitched that to the Journal’s editorial page, but by then they were already burned out on Bernie. (If only we’d had this blog then, but that’s besides the point.) But maybe I was wrong, maybe Madoff isn’t the poster boy for the decade, after all: Maybe it’s Tiger Woods.
That’s the argument Frank Rich makes in the Times. After dismissing the idea that Ben Bernanke is “Person of the Year,” and pointing out that the public’s been played for fools by everybody from Woods to Ken Lay to George Bush, he says the Woods scandal perfectly illustrates a decade that’s been one long suspension of disbelief.
- Temporary employment trend marks a welcome sign for the jobs market. “The combination of fewer layoffs and more hiring provides some welcome news – but within the context of two years of job losses,” the Atlanta Fed’s macroblog.
- Did someone break a mirror? Could take almost seven years for the unemployment rate to revert back to 5%, University of Oregon economics professor Mark Thoma writes at MoneyWatch.
- Keep an eye out for percolating commodity prices and what impact they may play concerning Fed’s monetary policy, UC San Diego economics professor James Hamilton writes at Econbrowser.
- Citi repaying TARP is nice. And the focus will be on strong capital ratios once the deal is completed. But the bottom line is Citi still needs to get smaller and more profitable, Reuters blogger Felix Salmon says.
- President Obama calls bankers “fat cats” and lashes out at Wall Street over increasing tensions surrounding financial reform. But is Obama merely posturing with rhetoric on bankers? Naked capitalism’s Yves Smith weighs in.
- John Hussman’s at it again, making the case that the S&P 500 is “decidedly speculative” at current levels. And the long-term outcome for risk-taking at these levels will “almost undoubtedly be unrewarding.”
- Real Time Economics gathers some remembrances of economist Paul Samuelson, who passed Sunday. He was 94.
- The profits posted by the nation’s banks in the third quarter would have disappeared if they’d maintained their loan loss provisions, rather than lowering them, Annaly Capital Management says, and the fact that they are lowering them while loan losses continue to rise is a red flag. (hat tip, naked capitalism.)
- The Federal Reserve may be coming around to a notion that to most people is obvious: you can spot bubbles.
J.P. Morgan reported some strong earnings today. But what this bloggers eye were some of the sub-numbers in the earnings report. The bank booked $1.8 billion in investment banking fees. But don’t be fooled – that wasn’t from big M&A advising. But $429 million was in advisory fees. Instead, that $1.3 billion + remaining fees […]
David Oreck, founder of a well-known maker of vacuums and air purifiers, says he’s upset his namesake company is in bankruptcy. He says Nashville, Tenn.-based Oreck Corp. was a perfectly profitable company when he sold his stake in it to a private equity firm in 2004. He blames the firm, New York-based American Securities Capital […]
