Redirecting

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

What I'm Reading Today

-Nouriel Roubini's Op-Ed in the WSJ: "We Can't Subsidize the Banks Forever." No mention of wall vaginas.

- The Barricade: Michael Milken on financial alchemy - turning toxic waste into AAA gold.

- Telegraph UK: Evidence that Vincent Van Gogh's ear was cut off by his friend, fellow painter Paul Gaugin.

- This one actually IS from The Onion: Nation Ready to be Lied to About Economy Again
WASHINGTON—After nearly four months of frank, honest, and open dialogue about the failing economy, a weary U.S. populace announced this week that it is once again ready to be lied to about the current state of the financial system. Tired of hearing the grim truth about their economic future, Americans demanded that the bald-faced lies resume immediately, particularly whenever politicians feel the need to divulge another terrifying problem with Wall Street, the housing market, or any one of a hundred other ticking time bombs everyone was better off not knowing about. In addition, citizens are requesting that the phrase, "It will only get worse before it gets better," be permanently replaced with, "Things are going great. Enjoy yourselves."
It's kinda sad when The Onion (or South Park) creates stories that are more on point that the Associated Press.

- ESPN's Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, has a very interesting piece about how the advent of technology has completely changed the way sports journalists do their jobs, and the way athletes market themselves.

"Today's technology means athletes don't need a middleman anymore. You know how you won't hear a peep out of Jennifer Aniston for a year, then she'll have a movie to promote and you can't get away from her? She shows up when she wants to show up, always on her terms. It's no different from Tiger's making himself "available" every summer when his video game is released. Okay, he's a superstar; he can pull that crap. But what about the other guys? I see a day when the following sequence will be routine: Player demands trade on blog; team obliges and announces deal on Twitter; player thanks old fans, takes shots at old team and gushes about new team on Facebook. We will not need anyone to report this, just someone to recap it. Preferably with links."

Simmons' piece is especially relevant considering that there is talk of a bailout of the newspaper industry. I especially enjoyed this dead-on comment from Michael Sherrin on the Clusterstock post regarding the potential for a newspaper bailout:

"Why should we want to spend money on a newspaper bailout? Journalism is not in trouble - the paper version is, and there's little reason to save it if people don't want to read them. People are adjusting how they consume news, whether from 24 hour news channels to various web sites. Readership for newspapers is dropping because newspapers aren't offering consumers a product they want. They are thus badly run companies that deserve to go out of business. Other companies will come in because there is massive demand for news and quality journalism (TV news ratings continue to increase as does web consumption). Newspapers as a medium are being replaced, but they are not the end-all-be-all of journalism."

Sherrin's comment seems to jive perfectly with Simmons' article.

From yours truly, a rhetorical question: Why do we care so much if Bernanke thinks the recession is ending or not? Bernanke has proven that he is unable to forecast what's going on in the economy - this is not my opinion, it's a fact - he flat out missed the fiscal crisis. He uses economic models which have been proven to be suspect at best, and completely inaccurate at worst.

Finally, this tremendous assortment of trick beer pong shots (with soundtrack):


-KD

2 comments:

Kid Dynamite said...

i also liked these two reports this morning on MGM:

"MGM Mirage (MGM Quote) estimates reduced at Barclays through 2010. Bookings are improving, but on lower prices. Balance sheet issues also remain. Equal-weight rating and $1 price target.

MGM Mirage (MGM Quote) upgraded at Merrill/BofA from Underperform to Buy. $15 price target. Focusing on names with the highest beta and deepest cyclicality."

i happen to agree with Barclays

Anonymous said...

Exactly, why does everyone care what this all knowing Barnanke predicts....?

On February 28, 2007, Bernanke told the House budget committee that he didn’t consider the housing downturn “as being a broad financial concern or a major factor in assessing the state of the economy.” He maintained an upbeat tone over the next several months, during which two large subprime lenders, New Century Financial Corp. and American Home Mortgage, filed for bankruptcy, and the damage spread to Wall Street firms that had invested in subprime securities.