Category: Regulation
11 February, 2010 (10:39) | CDSs, Capital markets, Finance, Regulation, Snow, Speculation, United Kingdom | 1 comment
By: David A. Smith
[Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]
Yesterday, in our real-world metaphor for capital markets’ shenanigans, we encountered probabilistic meteorologist Cliff Bryant, who parlayed his interest in White Christmases into two tickets that, if honored as he thinks they should be honored, will be worth several million pounds.
Might two slips of paper be worth [...]
10 February, 2010 (11:26) | CDSs, Capital markets, Finance, Regulation, Speculation, United Kingdom | No comments
By: David A. Smith
Want to bet whether it’s going to snow tonight?
Odds of winning slim?
Every now and then, nature offers us a visual metaphor for an abstract principle of finance – so for our little tale of complex derivatives and interdependency among financial instruments, we need look no further than a heartwarming English tradition [...]
4 February, 2010 (10:53) | Apartments, Essential posts, Housing, New York City, Public housing, Regulation, Subsidy, Theory, US News | No comments
By: David A. Smith
[Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]
Yesterday we visited Ingersoll and Whitman Houses, two large public housing properties in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood, where the New York Times showed the obligatory photographs of empty apartments and broken windows before giving an assemblyman a platform to spout complaints about the invisible ‘administrative management’ that makes [...]
3 February, 2010 (11:03) | Apartments, Essential posts, Housing, New York City, Public housing, Regulation, Subsidy, Theory, US News | No comments
By: David A. Smith
What bureaucrat can we blame for this?
The New York Times story inspiring this post follows the time-honored journalistic formula for spotlighting a problem to deplore: start with an incontrovertibly deplorable problem, chase it with a provocative quote, and skate superficially through the background.
It’s simple, class; to publish, you must write
Someone had [...]
29 January, 2010 (11:21) | Banks, Compensation, Regulation, Speculation, Subprime, Theory, US News | No comments
By: David A. Smith
[Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]
Yesterday’s post opened the topic of compensating investment bankers and a fortiori investment banks as well, taking as initial text Steven Brill’s New York Times profile of TARP paymaster Kenneth Feinberg.
Put up your dukes, Feinberg!
Brill is full of admiration for Feinberg’s jawboning down the bankers’ actual paychecks, [...]