JMc

Recent Comments

  1. 1
    Posted 2011-09-20 12:05:41 on Was Yesterday The Worst Day For UBS In The History Of A Billion Universes?

    Actually since the VaRs are lognormal not normal-normal, it works out to only about 1 day in about 2500 years. Just being pedantic...

  2. 2
    Posted 2008-10-13 13:44:12 on That’s A Relief. For A Second I Thought They Were Going To Spend Some Money

    Not only "healthy" banks but only ones that are so healthy they have to be offered "attractive terms" to participate. I can just see Kashkari following in the footsteps of Sec. Paulson and kneeling to some "healthy" bank CEO begging him to please, please take the government's money. No red tape, no oversight, we don't want anything in return. Just please, please take our money and make our world rock.

  3. 3
    Posted 2008-09-23 12:51:03 on Bush: Socialist

    Or do we have the wrong "ism" - check out the Economics Policy section of Wikipedia's entry on fascism and see if it sounds familiar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

  4. 4
    Posted 2008-08-19 09:42:21 on What Does It Mean When The Treasury Has “No Plans” To Do Something?

    It's actually quite simple. When the Treasury/Fed was telling us that the economy was booming, they told us that they had a plan which was to do nothing. When the Treasury/Fed started telling us that the economy was tanking, they told us that the had no plans to do anything. Why does everyone have such a difficult time understanding the difference between planning to do nothing and having no plans to do anything?

  5. 5
    Posted 2008-07-29 10:30:58 on The Way Forward For Credit Ratings

    Being of a capitalist nature, I like the idea of using market data rather than backroom deal making to "rate" risk. It is more transparent and the emphasis on performance is finding paper that the market is pricing low and riding it up as the market realizes its mistake (which off course contradicts the idea that the market is instantly price efficient but that's what managers get paid for) or at least until someone figures out a way to scam the system. But I would like to point out that not every government intervention is "socialist". Socialism is public ownership/control for the public benefit. When government intervenes in the market to benefit private interests it can be many things including crony capitalism or combined with certain political aspects - fascism. But not socialism.(And a corrupt government calling itself socialist doesn't make it so.)