The 50 most powerful blogs
Bob Morris @ Mar 17th 2008 18:30 - Category: Blogging ;
From the Guardian.”>From The Guardian.
Among the familiar tech and political names are blogs I’d never heard of, and they definitely appear worth exploring.
Archive for March 17th, 2008
Bear sold for $2 a share
Bob Morris @ Mar 17th 2008 15:45 - Category: Credit crisis Tags: Bear Stearns;
Bear Stearns has (had?) 14,000+ full time employees who owned one-third of all Bear Stearns stock, presumably much of it in retirement funds where they were not allowed to sell. Thus, thousands of people, many almost certainly not wealthy, just had their retirement nest egg vaporize.
A year ago, Bear Stearns stock was $150…
Blockade the IRS
Bob Morris @ Mar 17th 2008 14:07 - Category: Anti-war ;
The venerable War Resisters League plans to blockade IRS offices in DC on Wednesday.
For at least this one day — March 19, 2008 — we need to create a disturbance in the smug complacency of the IRS/Pentagon money-axis.
Stock market surprisingly calm
Bob Morris @ Mar 17th 2008 11:06 - Category: Credit crisis Tags: Bear Stearns;
Bernanke is an academic and scholar of the Great Depression. Looks like that knowledge has been helping as the unprecedented, some say “out of the box”, moves by the Fed today have unquestionably stabilized financial markets that were on the verge of melting down.
Calculated Risk and other financial blogs
Bob Morris @ Mar 17th 2008 07:32 - Category: Credit crisis ;
American Leftist on why the financial blog Calculated Risk explains what’s going on way better than most left websites.
They post frequently during the day in response to events, and the comments are absolutely phenomenal, with some more radical than what you would encounter on political blogs, because some of the posters understand the relationship between the methods of crony capitalism and political power. It is, despite its absence of any overt ideological perspective, one of the most left blog sites around because the events that it examines are essential for any leftist to understand when contemplating the future of neoliberal capitalism and the American Empire.
I agree. In its own non-political way, CR indeed can be quite radical. The financial industry insiders who post and comment there can be scathing in their critiques of how our financial system has gone wrong. Moreover, they frequently are weeks, sometimes months, ahead of mainstream financial media on what’s really going on.
Also, and this really needs to be said, CR knows what they’re talking about and too much of the left doesn’t, as witness this this uncomprehending report from Counterpunch on the collapse of that Carlyle fund.
The politically-connected Carlyle Capital hedge fund defaulted on $16.6 billion of its debt. Carlyle boasted a $21.7 billion portfolio of AAA-rated residential mortgage-backed securities, but was unable to make a margin call of just $400 million. (Where did the $21.7 billion go?)
A multitude of financial blog posts and articles, including from CR, have explained clearly what happened. The fund put up about $800 million and used that to purchase $20bn more, making them leveraged at about 20-to-1. So if the trades go even slightly wrong, they take a big hit. But these trades went seriously wrong. So they got a margin call. If everything you own is margined and the value drops sharply and you have trouble selling because there are no buyers - then your holdings become valueless in terms of making a margin call. But Counterpunch doesn’t appear to understand these fairly simple, widely reported facts. They compound their errors by getting all conspiratorical about how the Fed wants to save Bear so the world financial system doesn’t implode. Like it would be a good thing if it did? Like the Fed should do nothing?
That’ why Calculated Risk is so valuable. They understand what’s going on, report it concisely, and yes, can be plenty critical of governmental, investment bank, and mortgage company practices too. Other excellent financial blogs include Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis and Naked Capitalism.
Obama and Clinton
Bob Morris @ Mar 17th 2008 00:30 - Category: Election 2008 Tags: Clinton, Obama;
Folks, the increasingly nasty disputes and disagreements between and Obama and Clinton need to end, and end now. Never underestimate the ability of the Democratic Party to shoot itself in the foot and turn a sure win into a defeat. A divisive primary that ruptures the party would be a swell way to accomplish that. Sure, I favor Obama over Clinton, but for the Democrats to win, they need a unified party. Now.
JPMorgan Chase buys Bear Stearns for $240 million
Bob Morris @ Mar 17th 2008 00:16 - Category: Credit crisis Tags: Bear Stearns, JPMorgan;
