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Larry Summers Defends Megabanks, Says Too Many Small Banks Make U.S. ‘Less Stable’ — HuffPo
Do those derivatives end-users just want to avoid taxes? — Time
Waldman helpfully takes Abacus apart. I simply don’t believe that ACA Capital really knew what it was insuring — Interfluidity
Why Goldman’s ‘Big Boy’ defense won’t work — WSJ
One hundred trillion dollars — Guan
The Worst Physics Article Ever — Science Blogs
I’ve been saying for years that most people are better off buying a Mac than AAPL stock. Seems I was wrong — Kyle Conroy
iPad not bad for your eyes, but is it bad for your sleep? — LAT
The covered bond industry is miffed about Basel — Alphaville
NYT blogger complains about being quoted and linked to — NYT
Rajat Gupta, GS board member and insider trader? This is the last thing Goldman needs right now — WSJ
Dambisa Moyo appointed to Barclays Board — Barclays
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Simple way to call the bluff on the ‘end users’ of derivatives who don’t want to pony up variation margin on their swaps:
1) Have them sign a document that states that should their swap counterparty bank fail, they will not seek remedies from the FDIC, Fed, Tsy, other taxapayer supported resource to make good any losses
2) Have the banks sign a similar document that the obligations of clearing houses in which they have equity (e. g., ICE Trust) and swaps for which they don’t collect variation margin are obligations of non-bank subsidiaries and not guaranteed by the FDIC insured institution.
Free market advocates like Jamie Dimon and LLoyd Blankfein would be standing in line to sign those documents along with all those end users who hate government regulation.
Regarding Scott James’ NYT rant, I simply don’t know what to say. At best it’s pining over a world long gone. At worst it’s a trip down Irrelevant Lane. I should bill him for the three minutes it took me to read it.
It’s neat that the $100,000,000,000,000 banknote has an anti-counterfeiting feature. Does that make it more valuable or less valuable?
Curmudgeon: Scott James’ lament was hardly a rant. Stossel’s failure to identify the source of his post is poor craftsmanship and laziness at the very least, and a conscious effort to mislead readers at worst. Fact is, he didn’t report any of the facts in the matter and should have done so. The invention of a new medium doesn’t erase well-established, valuable and necessary standards of conduct. Fox News makes up enough phony “facts” as it is. When it is actually using real facts that it did not find and verify on its own, it owes an *explicit* hat tip to those who actually did the work. If only as a matter of common courtesy. Not that one finds much of that on Fox, either….