Archive for August 31st, 2009

CDS And A U.S. Default: What’s The Point?

John Carney has a really smart post over at Clusterstock regarding the pricing of credit default swaps for Campbell Soup, JPMorgan and the US government. In case you haven’t been following all of this, the cost to insure credit risk on Campbell Soup and this country are essentially the same while the cost to insure […]

Life Isn’t Fair

Sadly, the prospect of poverty has forced me back into the employment swamp pool and will be limiting the amount of time that I have for blogging. While I would have preferred to spend my days scanning the news and opining thereon, our free market economy doesn’t generally allow for such things. Adjusting to my […]

Texting And Driving Don’t Mix

Sometimes things are so obvious that one is inclined to wonder why there’s even a need for debate. This is one of those: From the NYT: An organization of state highway safety officials on Monday plans to call for a ban on texting while driving, joining a growing chorus of legislators and safety advocates endorsing such […]

Chicago PMI Indicated Expansion

The Chicago PMI came in at 50.0 for July. It registered 43.4 in July. Quite a jump and remember anything at 50 or above indicates expansion. No second derivative, we’re bleeding more slowly kind of stuff. All of the components that are used to calculate the final number showed improvement and two — Production and […]