One of the more interesting question post-meltdown (do we even still call it that? we really need a name for the ‘financial events of 2007-2008′) is whether structured finance is, for all intents and purposes, dead. Structured finance is the general term that includes the securitization of debt. These vehicles go by names like...
Read more »
Why do online movie viewing sites seem to trend towards crapitude? I thought the Roku player (which seamlessly streams Netflix to your TV) was about our best purchase of 2008. In mid-2009, we have watched many of the ‘best’ movies online already. And the latest 10 movies in the ‘new arrivals’?
1. Witch Hunt
2. Ballerina
3....
Read more »
Over on his backstage, Piste1eh needs a hobby. It reminds me that in 2000 or so, I was close to finishing graduate school, but still so far away. I also realized that sociology had begun to overtake my life – I had few interests outside of school, and little time to pursue those few...
Read more »
Congress is starting to ask questions about the ways Goldman Sachs measures risk, considering their supposed switch from an investment bank to a bank holding company. And they should. Plus, I think I was wrong about GS paying its profit-makers.
Read more »
Three thoughtful posts from Martha, Daniel, and Yuval comment on the NYT article about Goldman Sachs’ high-speed trading unit. The rather critical article suggests that high-speed trading is the latest way to exploit innovation at the expense of everyone else, to the tune of $21 Billion in 2008.
This issue is not new as...
Read more »
In what has become something of a tradition for me, I am taking August off from the news. No more newspapers, no political blogs, no following the latest developments of this, that, and the other. I am frankly looking forward to the lowering of my blood pressure, the clearing of an artificially-cranked-up news cycle,...
Read more »
From an excellent practical handbook on writing, Howard Becker’s Writing for Social Scientists:
Scholars learn to fear the literature in graduate school. I remember Professor Louis Wirth, one of the distinguished members of the Chicago school, putting Erving Goffman, then a fellow graduate student of mine, in his place with the literature gambit. It was...
Read more »
Ezra Klein and Eric Klinenberg look remarkably similar to me. Maybe it’s just me. Sadly, I never think I look like anyone. Just me.
Read more »
I’m sure everyone with a blog has funny search terms people use to find their site. Apparently, people find mine by searching for ‘goldman sachs is corrupt’, sometimes ‘housing cmos’, ‘art markets,’ every once in a while masculinity.
And then there’s the person who is searching for ‘Asshole Levin’.
I think I gotta start...
Read more »
I found myself watching Jerry Maguire today, and I am struck again at just how brilliant this scene is, with Tom Cruise having just gotten fired and (seemingly) salvaging the one big client that will save him. On the way out, he’s searching the radio for something to sing to, and after a few...
Read more »
Yesterday, my partner emailed me with the odd question, “did you somehow “return” the book 1984?
No, it turns out that Amazon re-appropriated the book they sold me. Thanks for the refund, go ahead and take the book back, apparently. Better than just taking it I guess.
From the Amazon forums
Here’s the response from Amazon...
Read more »
I’ve been sitting on this graphic, pulled from a hospital form I once received, or sign I once snagged. If you or someone you know has been through anything at all, you’ve seen this chart:
I have always meant to write about the attempted power of medical hegemony captured in this sign, that the appropriate...
Read more »
Two ways to regulate futures markets are by regulating the organizations that comprise the financial markets, or by regulating the financial activities in which any organization participates. This is an attempt to think about these differences.
Read more »
How can it be that the NYT reports that JP Morgan is 110% awesome: “The strong showing may put to rest some worries that the bank was allowed to pay back its $25 billion taxpayer investment too early, after it passed the Treasury Department’s stress test in May.”
But the Wall Street Journal can report...
Read more »
One of the best movies I’ve seen this year is The Hurt Locker (preview on the Youtubes), a fictional documentary-style film about a team of US bomb techs in Iraq. The premise is that a new leader of a 3-man tech team differs in style than his predecessor. The resulting tension among team members...
Read more »
I’m feeling a little like all I do is complain round here. This site on the impossible cool is 99% awesomeness. Does that help to offset some of my crotchety-ness?
Read more »
The Stranger reviews Twitter, 140-characters at a time, and I’m not terribly impressed:
“We’re telling each other stories, 140 characters at a time, as they unfold. If you can’t see the value in that, you’re hopeless.”
Life in the twitter-age: A glut of information and data, a poverty of knowledge.
Read more »
Oh Yes, it’s their ‘trading prowess’, their ability to “embrace risks that its rivals feared to take and, for the most part, manage those risks better than its rivals dreamed possible.”
Don’t pay attention to those last few sentences, though. The $13 billion government subsidy via the bailout of AIG, and the $28 billion in...
Read more »
I complained last week that Duncan Watts’ editorial was an argument without much substance, effectively an argument based on deep knowledge of networks but shallow knowledge of markets.
At the end of last week, James K. Galbraith testified for the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology. And it was pretty awesome. First, it was...
Read more »