Naked Capitalism and other very reputable blogs have been all over the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation about their decision to reallocate their portfolio towards equities and away from fixed income securities just before the markets went into free fall. Their criticism as a strategic decision is justifiable. Unfortunately they torched the agency when it wasn’t […]
Archive for April 1st, 2009
PBGC Portfolio Reallocation Isn’t What The Blogs Are Making It Out To Be
The New Compensation Bill
The House of Representatives passed another bill intended to regulate compensation at companies that receive a capital infusion from the government. This bill is their second attempt at limiting compensation after the first one banning bonuses stalled. According to the NYT the bill would vest the Secretary of the Treasury with the power to set […]
Auto Sales For March Still Depressed But Industry Feels The Corner May Be Turned
Auto sales for March were still very weak but showed some improvement over February. Despite these rather awful numbers, the industry said they think things are getting better. All the big car makers suffered sales declines of 36% or more compared to March 2008. Industrywide, U.S. sales totaled 857,735 cars and light trucks, down 37% […]
AIG, PPIP & GM: A Tangled Web
It’s fascinating to watch all of the financial scrambling that the government is engaged in slowly dissolve into a Marx Brothers movie. Here are some connections between a few dots that illustrate the point. The WSJ has a rather good editorial today that points out Treasury seems to be trying to rig the game so […]
Economic News: It Could Be Worse
Here’s a bit of economic news for you to digest while you wait for news of our salvation from London. The ISM reported that their March reading came in at 36.3, still in a contraction mode. But new orders rose to 41.2 from 33.1 in February. A reading of 50 indicates stability so we are […]