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How the art world embraces much more photography than, say, painting — WaPo
Can we force the ratings agencies to have some kind of skin in the game should their ratings go spectacularly awry? — Drum
The end of TED’s magnum opus on banker pay has some really good insights — TED
Vanity Fair owns the Conde-McKinsey-end-of-an-era story — VF
Konczal on Waldman on Konczal on vanilla products – this is the blogosphere at its finest — Rortybomb
Placebo may cause side effects — the same side effects as the medicine for which it’s standing in — Cheeptalk
This CQ mess makes the Economist look positively evil. Do they know that? — WaPo
True Blood, now in its 18th week of DVD release has $54.998 million in total sales. — TV by the Numbers
Newsmax publishes, then takes down, column calling for military coup against Obama — TPM
With the FDIC taking over 95 banks this year, it has many assets to dispose of, including a Ferrari — The Deal
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Once again, I object to TED’s, um, insights. He (for the sake of simplicity, I am assuming TED is a he) has explained everything and nothing.
Worse, he has provided cover for every investment banker who once had skin in the game to look in the mirror and say, “What I did was right. It was the other guys. I just got caught up in the tsunami.” This is wrong. There has to be both individual and institutional soul-searching to begin the process of fixing, but TED says no.
@Curmudgeon — Actually, I think you have rather spectacularly missed my entire point. My point was to explain what I perceive to have been the contributing factors, context, and behaviors in the investment banking industry which helped lead to and exacerbate the recent crisis. I did this in the context of arguing against what I see as the distressingly prevalent tendency of many to simplistically ascribe the failures of my industry to compensation models.
I do not deny the flaws and failures of my industry. I find it hard to believe anyone could read what I wrote and think that. Far from denying the necessity of soul searching, my post comprises one of the most honest self-examinations of an important set of participants in the global financial markets I am aware of. However, I continue to reject the disingenuous and downright dishonest tendencies of many other parties whose mistakes and greed contributed to our problems to assign all the blame to “greedy” investment bankers.
I have indeed searched my soul, Sir. Many of my peers have, too. Have you?
I renew my call for some sort of disambiguation device between The ED and TED (Tech, Esomething, Dsomething).
@TED: Thanks for the enlightenment. I still believe that someone in your industry could read what you wrote and excuse themselves as individual participants. Why else do we find such institutional resistance to change? I’ve not heard much about leadership standing up there and saying “Our system, model, and we as individuals bear a large amount of blame, and here’s how we plan to change.” Have you heard such proclamations from financial services leadership? I understand that there may be legal implications to such a statement, but 1) they should be secondary to honesty; and 2) they do not preclude change. Have you seen real change?
Good for you on the soul searching. I am not of any industry associated with finance, so consider my opinions as those of an educated outsider. In my own profession and life, I search my soul far too often, and far too often find it wanting.