Talk Back

A reader responds belatedly to the death of Dow Jones Newswires columnist Jim Murphy, who died in his Jersey City, N.J. home in February at the age of 66.

I am so sorry to hear, as late as I have, of Jim Murphy’s passing.

I have been out of the trading business for some five years now, but somewhere towards the second half of my decade-long stint within, I found myself having earned the much-coveted “E-Mail Buddy” tag from Mr. Murphy.

Today, in replying to an email from a work colleague, I found my thoughts for a particular sentence beginning to take shape, moving vaguely towards a phrase I had read only on special occasion, but always with relish–and then it hit me. Not only could I recall the phrase, but it fit my e-communique perfectly: “SKIP ‘EM. NEXT!”

One of Mr. Murphy’s Jesuit instructor’s customary statement of irritation after a student–quite often, Jim Murphy–had bollixed yet another Latin translation, yet again.

And I thought, what better reason to check in with Jim Murphy after five years and see how today’s version of Wall Street is holding up against his tireless quest for reason, logic, and coherence?

And I learned of the terrible news.

Please pass along my condolences to the irrepressible Ruthie, whom Jim never failed to credit for all that she did to delight him, and to Max, of whom he was so proud, and to the granddaughters, about whom I regrettably never got to hear anything about. I make no overstatement that both my personal and professional life were better for my having gotten to know a man whom I never actually met.

By Eduardo Kaplan
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–Jim Murphy, a Dow Jones Newswires columnist whose powerful and often irreverent voice made him a favorite among readers and newsroom colleagues, died Monday at his home in Jersey City, N.J. He was 66.

Jim Murphy

Jim died in his sleep, said a family member. No official cause for the death has been determined.

Jim joined Newswires in 1995. During his stint as an editor, and especially as a columnist, Jim was often described as an iconoclast, a term often reserved in newsrooms for the type of strongly opinionated personalities who speak their minds regardless of the consequences.

His column resonated with readers and quickly became one of the more popular features on the wire. Jim received a National Headliners Award for his column in 1999, and in 2003 he was recognized with Newswires’ Clabby Award.

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By Jim Murphy
   A DOW JONES NEWSWIRES COLUMN

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–Among economists, old myths never die or fade away.

Take, for example, Nairu. Nairu stands for “Non-accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment.” To economists, Nairu means that there exists an unemployment rate above which inflation will accelerate irrespective of any other prevalent economic factors.

What I want to know is: If there is an unemployment rate that, in and of itself, gooses inflation, why – as the U.S. jobless rate has marched inexorably toward 10% – has the inflation rate stubbornly stayed at 1% or below? In fact, many reputable economists believe the U.S. is well on its way toward deflation. Does that mean there is also a Nadru – Non-accelerating Deflation Rate of Unemployment?

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By Jim Murphy
   A DOW JONES NEWSWIRES COLUMN

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–”We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, the pursuit of Happiness and the right to own a single family home.” — Adapted from the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, July 4, 1776

It isn’t surprising we use the word “right” to describe something that isn’t a right in the meaning of the Declaration of Independence and, by extension, something that is not a “certain unalienable right.” Turn on a soap opera, and you might hear one of the characters say, “Babette has a right to cosmetic surgery.” Of course, she has no such right unless you believe it can be subsumed by the rubric, “pursuit of Happiness.”

In any case, we know that many people have lost their homes during the recession because they couldn’t make the mortgage payments and their houses were repossessed.

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MARK TO MARKET: Cash For Clunkers Nightmare Is Nothing New

By Jim Murphy
A DOW JONES NEWSWIRES COLUMN

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–A sage – me – once observed that some things make sense until you think about them.

Thursday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood surprised most of us with the news that the wildly successful “cash for clunkers” program would end at 8 p.m. EDT on Monday, Aug. 24.

When I say the program was wildly successful, I mean that the Obama administration characterized it as such, and the people who were able to get a $3,500 or $4,500 rake-off on a new car by turning in their gas-guzzling jalopies were not unhappy, either.

Car dealers, whom the bloated Beltway bureaucrats have taken their own sweet time in repaying for cash advances made under the “clunkers” program, have spent, in the words of the Freddy Fender song, “wasted days and wasted nights.” Continue reading…

 By Jim Murphy
   A DOW JONES NEWSWIRES COLUMN

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–President Barack Obama continues his penchant for boldly going where no man has gone before by insuring that three Indiana pension funds which held securitized bonds of Chrysler LLC were really not securitized against anything at all.

It no longer appears to mean anything in the eyes of the executive branch of the U.S. government if individuals and pension funds lend companies money with the promise that, if the companies go bust, they will be first on the list of entities to be reimbursed for a greater share of their outlays than the holders of unsecuritized debt.

Earlier this week, three Indiana pension funds appealed a federal court decision denying their suit to block the acquisition of Chrysler by Fiat SpA. The pension funds argued that even though they held securitized debt, they were being put at the back of the line for payment, behind holders of unsecuritized debt.

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 A Dow Jones Newswires column by  Jim Murphy stated:

  NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–Members of Congress treat the American people as if we were a mass agglomeration of simians.

  Here’s an example of what I’m talking about: An oblivious band of elected Yahoos plans to introduce legislation to tax the executives at American International Group who drove the company into a ditch at a rate of 91% on the bonuses paid to them for 2008.

  I have several responses:

  I’m not a lawyer, but wouldn’t it be unconstitutional to tax AIG executives at a prohibitive rate without also taxing at the same rate all the Wall Street executives who received incredible bonuses as their firms were disappearing into the abyss?

  But wait a second. Wouldn’t it also be unconstitutional to tax only the
bonuses of executives at Wall Street firms who got Troubled Asset Relief Program money?

  Wouldn’t the government also have to tax executives at every other kind of firm who received high seven-figure bonuses as their companies reported losing quarters or losing years?

  But wait another second. Is this what our Founding Fathers had in mind, the federal government setting compensation caps for private enterprise?

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 Jim Murphy writes that whatever is wrong with Bank of America, and because it’s so huge there must be some things wrong with it, it has nothing to do with the fact that CEO Ken Lewis flew on a corporate jet to be deposed by N.Y. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

In part:

  NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–Any idiot can shoot fish in a barrel, but the fish they land are too full of buckshot to be edible.

  The top story on ABC-TV’s “Good Morning, America” Friday was preceded by the assertion that banks still don’t get it.

  The reference was to Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis’s flight Thursday to New York City on one of BofA’s fleet of corporate jets. Mr. Lewis flew to New York to be deposed by state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in connection with the payment of $3.6 billion in bonuses to about 700 Merrill Lynch executives, which became public the day before Merrill was acquired by Bank of America.

   Cuomo wanted Lewis to answer the questions made famous at the Watergate hearings in 1973: “What did you know and when did you know it?”

  After Lewis was deposed, a spokesman for the AG’s office said the CEO refused to provide Cuomo with the names of the executives who were given the bonuses and how much money each of them got. Lewis didn’t directly answer reporters’ questions on this topic, but he volunteered that he answered all of the questions frankly and fully “to the best of my ability.”

Jim Murphy’s column “MARK TO MARKET: Once Again, A Verbal Abomination Prevails,” which, among other topics, discusses President Barack Obama’s plan to help homeowners.