36th Chamber

Recent Comments

  1. 1
    Posted 2008-05-20 11:11:11 on Erin Callan: CFO As Media Celebrity

    She was pretty brilliant as a trader and is just generally very smart. And while gay pimps and fat dead guys are great entertainment, there's still something to be said for showing a little leg.

  2. 2
    Posted 2008-04-29 10:26:26 on “Closer To End,” But Not Really

    Yeah, but he's still not putting any guarantees on his funds.

  3. 3
    Posted 2008-04-17 19:41:40 on Write-Offs: 04.17.08

    Not leh?

  4. 4
    Posted 2008-04-10 09:56:11 on Write-Offs: 04.09.08

    I think 8:31 is Cody or his publicist, but 9:44 is definitely legit.

  5. 5
    Posted 2008-04-02 19:16:45 on Write-Offs: 04.02.08

    That wallstrip has warped my fragile little mind.

  6. 6
    Posted 2008-04-01 14:11:31 on Debt Waves

    @2:02 - yeah but they're heavy and the melting process keeps ruining all my nice pots.

  7. 7
    Posted 2008-03-31 09:36:31 on Opening Bell: 3.31.08

    totally agree with 9:21. Guava juice was great. Maybe they can switch to the $5/juice model other airlines have gone with instead of doing away with it entirely.

  8. 8
    Posted 2008-03-26 12:48:15 on Meredith Whitney Ups Her Own Ante

    But there are so many synergies in citi! Synergies people! Seriously though, that place is a giant clusterfuck and dead horse is right - the only thing you can hope to do is delegate running the different groups to someone who knows what they're doing etc.

  9. 9
    Posted 2008-03-20 12:11:16 on Bear Stearns T-Shirts: Now On Ebay!

    11:42 - now that's funny! youtube for reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2C07yRCdT8

  10. 10
    Posted 2008-03-19 10:29:09 on Opening Bell: 3.19.08

    Sure, their book value is more than $2 if you take assets minus liabilities but that's assets when JPM sells them on the open market, not assets when Bear sells them in Chapter 7. If Bear filed for Chapter 11 shareholders would continue to own their Bear stock after (if?) Bear emerged from bankruptcy and wouldn't get paid anything because that's not how Chapter 11 works.

  11. 11

    I'm still just not understanding how you're getting a 98 for shares of BSC? I think I'm missing something.

  12. 12

    @ BSD - yes. @ 2:05 - I'm going to pretend that the irony in suggesting that everyone stop vilifying Spitzer for going to a whore when Spitzer prosecuted several prostitution rings was intentional.

  13. 13
    Posted 2008-03-05 19:14:23 on Jesse Jackson Stalks The Visa IPO

    Sometimes I think famous people should hire someone whose only job is to tell them when they're being stupid. Apparently Jackson has not hired such a person.

  14. 14

    About 2/3 of the way through this article they talk about what happened: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120429486695502997.html

  15. 15
    Posted 2008-02-27 10:27:53 on Another Alphabet Soup Ready To Run Off The Rails

    VIEs are backed by a letter of credit from the bank. Also, notch a mark up for Carney trying to use the E*Trade sale as some form of mark to market with this from the end of the article: "The securities in the VIEs may be worth as little as 27 cents on the dollar once they're put back on balance sheets, according to David Hendler, an analyst at New York-based CreditSights. Hendler based his estimate on the recent sale of $800 million of bonds by E*Trade Financial Corp."

  16. 16
    Posted 2008-02-26 10:46:29 on Opening Bell: 2.26.08

    Matt_m - Voting is pretty regulated and there are all sorts of laws about what you can and can't do when campaigning. So there's that. Of course it's elected officials who are making laws regulating their re-election campaigns so that's a bit of an issue, but to say that no regulation exists is silly. Also, the whole point of this regulation thing is to keep bad people from taking advantage of people with less information ("stupid people"). There's also a power imbalance issue - all the people who eat beef may have just as much or more power in the aggregate as the beef producer (or whatever regulated industry you want to talk about), but they're not negotiating across the table from the producer in the aggregate, they're negotiating individually and individually it's silly to expect them to be able to negotiate something like inspections of meat packing facilities. I'd also be hesitant to make the logical jump from regulating commerce to regulating politics. There may be good reasons for regulating (or deregulating) each, but I'm not sure we can just say "regulate commerce for this reason so regulate politics in the same way."

  17. 17

    8:38 - my understanding is that ratings are an indication of risk of default. If that's the case then aren't default rates the best measure of accuracy? If that's not the case then what are ratings meant to do?

  18. 18

    But everything is subject to third party demand. Even the value of cash is subject to third party demand.

  19. 19

    The best part about the muni bond market is that for many municipalities the probability that the municipality will default is far lower than the probability the credit enhancing monoline will default.

  20. 20
    Posted 2008-02-15 17:09:33 on Stick Figures Explain CDOs and Subprime

    I think the accounting czar is my favorite. Well done.