Archive for May 14th, 2009

The Right Way To Do An Option ARM

  This is a fascinating article that the NYT has written about World Savings and its Option ARMs. It allows you to draw some fairly perverse conclusions. I assume you know what Option ARMs are all about. If not here is the link to Wikipedia, I’m not going to explain it again. And you may know about […]

We’re All Earmarkers Now

The American system of apportioning money from the annual federal budget has evolved to a scramble for earmarked money. Either you buy into it and have a representative powerful enough to get you your share or you get left out. That’s the thesis of Dan Henninger’s column in the Wall Street Journal today. It’s a […]

The Hypocrisy Of Compensation Regulation

I’ve not yet opined on the Obama administration’s plans to somehow, someway regulate compensation within the financial services industry. I’ll get to it once a real plan hits the streets but for now all I see are a lot of trial balloons floating around. Having said that something did strike me as odd about the […]

How Many Car Companies Survive The Long Haul?

  Once the reorganizations of GM and Chrysler are done, the companies comfortably back producing automobiles and all apparently right with the world, we may then have to get down to the real business of rationalizing the U.S. auto industry. A new report from A.T. Kearney featured in the WSJ Real Time Economics blogsuggests that we […]

The New New Foreclosure Plan

The Obama administration rolled out yet another initiative to stem the foreclosure tide even as evidence mounts that the earlier plans are having a marginal effect. I haven’t seen any details on the new plan but the reports are that it focuses on encouraging short sales. Without any details, I have no idea what they […]

A Flat Employment Report

The green shoots in the labor market are also starting to wither. The four week moving average of initial claims jumped by 6,000 to 630,500. The one week data showed an increase of 32,000 to 637,000. As always, concentrate on the four week number. Blame for the increase is being laid at the doorstep of […]