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Me, on NewsHour, on bank taxes. Complete with TBTF BofA pre-roll. — PBS
Windmill gone wild — Discover
RBS executives who have never earned more than £1m have this year been told they’ll be pocketing over £5m — BBC
The redacted AIG exhibit — SEC
When Jon Stewart Fails — Prospect
Nigerian president Yar’Adua is alive, at least. But he’s very weak, and not in Nigeria. My guess is he won’t return — BBC
Charles Pelton on how to monetize journalists, holds up the Economist as a good example — Paid Content
The Christoph Niemann weather forecast — NYT
Is the digital music market maturing? — Billboard
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I saw you on pbs.Judy restated Bert Ely’s point that banks were not that strong internally.
If that is the case, how can they pay big bonuses? Why are they not building reserves?
There are many issues here, one of which is that the “Bonus” is actually part of the normal compensation. Basic salaries in the city have barely moved in the last decade such that instead of paying someone £250k they pay them £100k basic with a 150% bonus. UBS and others have acknowledged this and upped the base salary. This makes them less “flexible” but more realistic, andwith no final salary pension schemes it is less of a liability. A second point is that they have indeed built their reserves and in many cases are over-capitalised. However, if they are indeed paying performance bonuses to traders doing little more than throwing leverage at a steep yield curve then they are as stupid as they always were. However, I am afraid this is largely a fantastic conjuring trick to distract the audience from more important failures of structure and regulation.
Great job on Lehrer—er, News Hour—last night!
Hope it becomes a regular thing.
-Aaron
Lawyerist LAB
Really a nice, focused performance on NewsHour. Your viewpoint was very coherent and came across well. You should do more of that.
Gotta work on the perky smile and a bit more local-TV-headbobbing-wth-certainty-and-e mpathetic-optimism, however. You seemed entirely too rational.
Great job Felix! Also welcome back to the windowpane-check shirt.
“Jamie Dimon, chairman of J.P. Morgan Chase, told a Washington conference on Monday – quote- ‘I’m getting tired of… This is not a casino.’”
Funny; I think that’s actually taxpayers’ line.
“[A] lot of bankers really don’t appreciate how deep that anger runs across America… If you implemented this kind of tax, if it was large, people would think that was right. I think that Americans would feel that made sense. I don’t think it would make the anger go away.”
Bingo.
You’re British?!?!