• Shoichi Nakagawa at the G7
    Posted by on February 17th, 2009 at 1:39 pm

    If you haven’t seen it, here’s Shoichi Nakagawa sounding a bit drunk at the G7 meeting.

    He’s resigned.

  • Medtronic’s Earnings
    Posted by on February 17th, 2009 at 12:57 pm

    Unlike most of the market, Medtronic (MDT) is having a good day today. The stock is up on decent earnings.

    For the quarter ended Jan. 23, Medtronic reported net income of $723 million, or 65 cents a share, up from $77 million, or 7 cents, a year earlier. Excluding acquisition-related charges, earnings rose to 71 cents a share from 63 cents.
    Net sales rose 2.6% to $3.49 billion, or 6% excluding foreign-currency changes.
    Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters were expecting earnings, excluding items, of 70 cents on revenue of $3.51 billion.

    This is good to see. Last quarter’s performance was not comforting. Here’s a look at MDT’s sales and earnings for the past few quarters:
    Quarter………..EPS………….Sales
    Jul-01…………$0.28………..$1,455.70
    Oct-01………..$0.29………..$1,571.00
    Jan-02………..$0.30………..$1,592.00
    Apr-02………..$0.34………..$1,792.00
    Jul-02…………$0.32………..$1,713.90
    Oct-02………..$0.34………..$1,891.00
    Jan-03………..$0.35………..$1,912.50
    Apr-03………..$0.40………..$2,148.00
    Jul-03…………$0.37………..$2,064.20
    Oct-03………..$0.39………..$2,163.80
    Jan-04………..$0.40………..$2,193.80
    Apr-04………..$0.48………..$2,665.40
    Jul-04…………$0.43………..$2,346.10
    Oct-04………..$0.44………..$2,399.80
    Jan-05………..$0.46………..$2,530.70
    Apr-05………..$0.53………..$2,778.00
    Jul-05…………$0.50………..$2,690.40
    Oct-05………..$0.54………..$2,765.40
    Jan-06………..$0.55………..$2,769.50
    Apr-06………..$0.62………..$3,066.70
    Jul-06…………$0.55………..$2,897.00
    Oct-06………..$0.59………..$3,075.00
    Jan-07………..$0.61………..$3,048.00
    Apr-07………..$0.66………..$3,280.00
    Jul-07…………$0.62………..$3.127.00
    Oct-07………..$0.58………..$3,124.00
    Jan-08………..$0.63………..$3,405.00
    Apr-08………..$0.78………..$3,860.00
    Jul-08…………$0.72………..$3,706.00
    Oct-08………..$0.67………..$3,570.00
    Jan-09………..$0.71………..$3,494.00

  • Michael Moore Needs Help
    Posted by on February 13th, 2009 at 11:06 am

    From MichaelMoore.com:

    Friends,
    I am in the middle of shooting my next movie and I am looking for a few brave people who work on Wall Street or in the financial industry to come forward and share with me what they know. Based on those who have already contacted me, I believe there are a number of you who know “the real deal” about the abuses that have been happening. You have information that the American people need to hear. I am humbly asking you for a moment of courage, to be a hero and help me expose the biggest swindle in American history.
    All correspondence with me will be kept confidential. Your identity will be protected and you will decide to what extent you wish to participate in telling the greatest crime story ever told.
    The important thing here is for you to step up as an American and do your duty of shedding some light on this financial collapse. A few good people have already come forward, which leads me to believe there are many more of you out there who know what’s going on. Here’s your chance to let your fellow citizens in on the truth.
    If you have any info that would help, please contact me at my private email address: bailout@michaelmoore.com.

    First, I hate to tell Michael this but the story has already been exposed. Secondly, is bailout@michaelmoore.com really your private e-mail?

  • The Stimulus Bill Reaches 1,434 Pages
    Posted by on February 13th, 2009 at 10:09 am

    Here’s the complete text of the economic stimulus bill. All 1,434 pages.

  • Happy 200th Birthday Lincoln and Darwin
    Posted by on February 12th, 2009 at 6:47 am

    I just finished watching an interesting BBC series, The Voyage of Charles Darwin. I had no idea how important Darwin’s journey on the Beagle was to his work. He was at sea for five years.

  • James Wolcott Admits Defeat in an Argument
    Posted by on February 11th, 2009 at 11:13 pm

    In other words, he calls Arnold Kling a racist:

    A few days ago notice was taken (I’m practicing my passive voice) of economist Arnold Kling’s contention that the Obama stimulus plan was actually “reparations” in disguise. Given the complexion of our new president, this was interpreted as injecting a needless bit of race-baiting into the economic debate, raising the specter of a million Jeremiah Wrights marching on the capital mall with outstretched hands, demanding their cut of the action.

    One of the great advantages of seeing the race card played is that it tells me which side realizes it’s losing the argument.
    Thanks, James. You saved folks a lot of time.

  • Bailout for Bailout Nation
    Posted by on February 11th, 2009 at 11:27 am

    Yesterday, Jesse Eisinger reported that McGraw Hill dropped Barry Ritholtz’s book, Bailout Nation. Barry said that it’s due to his harsh treatment of the ratings agencies (Standard & Poor’s is owned by McGraw Hill).
    McGraw Hill says that it’s dropping the book due to editorial conflicts. This strikes me as an exceedingly lame excuse. Jesse quotes Barry, “All the conversations I had with them, they made apparent this was all about S&P’s role as sister company.”
    Felix says that the relationship probably fizzled due to chemistry as well, and I think he’s right. McGraw Hill certainly didn’t want the book to be dropped. I think they underestimated dealing with a blogger like Barry who’s not going to let himself get pushed around. They pushed too hard and he walked.
    The bottom line is that McGraw Hill is making a big mistake. The book was going to be a hit and now it’s going to be an even bigger hit. My bet is that a publisher will pick it up by the end of the week.

  • P.J. O’Rourke on the Death of Capitalism
    Posted by on February 11th, 2009 at 10:28 am

    From the Financial Times:

    The free market is dead. It was killed by the Bolshevik Revolution, fascist dirigisme, Keynesianism, the Great Depression, the second world war economic controls, the Labour party victory of 1945, Keynesianism again, the Arab oil embargo, Anthony Giddens’s “third way” and the current financial crisis. The free market has died at least 10 times in the past century. And whenever the market expires people want to know what Adam Smith would say. It is a moment of, “Hello, God, how’s my atheism going?”
    Adam Smith would be laughing too hard to say anything. Smith spotted the precise cause of our economic calamity not just before it happened but 232 years before – probably a record for going short.
    “A dwelling-house, as such, contributes nothing to the revenue of its inhabitant,” Smith said in The Wealth of Nations. “If it is lett [sic] to a tenant for rent, as the house itself can produce nothing, the tenant must always pay the rent out of some other revenue.” Therefore Smith concluded that, although a house can make money for its owner if it is rented, “the revenue of the whole body of the people can never be in the smallest degree increased by it”. [281]*
    Smith was familiar with rampant speculation, or “overtrading” as he politely called it.

  • The Geithner Plan
    Posted by on February 10th, 2009 at 2:01 pm

    The Washington Post:

    Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner this morning announced an aggressive and multi-faceted program that could commit $1.5 trillion or more in public and private funds to rescue banks and financial institutions and thaw frozen credit markets.
    The gravity of the financial crisis confronting the Obama administration was brought into stark focus as Geitner unveiled a financial stability plan that would more closely scrutinize the risks banks are facing and offer public and private capital to those that need it; create a fund, with a starting value of $500 billion, to buy up toxic real estate loans; and commit up to $1 trillion to reopen lending markets for consumer, student, small business, auto and commercial loans.
    Geithner said the administration was also working on a plan to address the nation’s housing crisis by bringing down mortgage payments and reducing interest rates. President Obama, appearing at a town hall meeting in Fort Myers, Fla., said he would personally outline the details of that plan within the next few weeks.
    Geithner did not ask Congress for more funds than the roughly $350 billion that remain in the Treasury Department’s original rescue package for the financial system. He said the balance of the money for the stability plan would, for now, come from other government agencies, such as the Federal Reserve, as well as private-sector contributions.
    “To get credit flowing again, to restore confidence in our markets, and restore the faith of the American people, we are fundamentally reshaping the government’s program to repair the financial system,” Geithner said. ” . . . We believe that the policy response has to be comprehensive, and forceful. There is more risk and greater cost in gradualism than in aggressive action.”

  • The Black Swan Song
    Posted by on February 9th, 2009 at 4:01 pm

    I’ve already devoted too much space to Nassim Taleb and his Black Swan nonsense. It’s a mystery as to why he’s considered such a visionary. But now people are claiming he’s one of the people who saw the financial crisis coming. I’ve read both of his awful books and he never made such a prediction.
    Taleb is a Johnny One-Note. He can talk about how people have trouble with risk. Fine, got it. But when we go to any other topic, he can’t deal. He always goes into his Napoleon Dynamite routine where he’s brilliant and everyone else is a “freakin’ idiot!”
    Notice in this clip when he’s asked what to do now and he has no clue. His answer is to fire Bernanke. Yep, that’ll solve things. Strip away the attitude and vindictiveness, and there’s nothing to him.