December 2009
1 post
May 2009
27 posts
“In private equity, the first rule is “the last money in sets the...”
– William Neuhauser commenting on auto bailouts
in “Obama’s New Capitalism”
by Marc Ambinder @ The Atlantic - Politics
“People in the American Jewish community and in Israel are sick of settlement...”
– Martin Indyk Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and former US Ambassador to Israel
On Obama taking a tough position with Netanyahu — New York Times
“I had dijon mustard on my sandwich for lunch, and it was delicious. I also felt...”
– John Cole @ Balloon Juice
“Justice Souter is a proud luddite who has never owned a computer. Sotomayor, on...”
– Gizmodo - Obama’s Supreme Court Nominee Knows Stuff About Computers
(via fred-wilson)
Ryan Avent - It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the... →
That banks are now pushing to be allowed to sit on both the sell side and buy side should make Treasury step back and do a rethink of whether PPIP is still a good idea. In the Washington Independent, Ryan argues:
The world has changed quite a bit since the plan was introduced. Markets have risen, making it easier for banks to raise private capital, and the results of the stress test seem to have...
WSJ - PPIP plan to buy banks' bad loans founders →
Is it about time to recognize that we’ll never find a goldilocks price to bring buyers and sellers together?
Prospective buyers and sellers have expressed reticence to the FDIC about participating for fear the program’s rules will change in a political atmosphere hostile to Wall Street. In addition, some banks that might have sold troubled loans into the program earlier in the year...
“Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English...”
– Mark Krikorian at the Corner
“Every time I think those people have reached absolute zero, the total negation of mind, it turns out that there are still more negative numbers for them to explore and colonize. And I remember the day when National Review was the intellectual epicenter of...
“I suppose there’s no more perfect storm than a loggorheic ideological...”
– Joe Klein, Newtiwtion TIMESwampland
““Why oh why can’t we have a better press corps?”
Then we...”
– Commenter uptown in response to Brad DeLong’s perennial cri de coeur
New York Times Crashed-and-Burned-and-Smoking-Watch (David Brooks Edition)
Can we win from PPIP even if it fails?
GillianTett - Why public private plan has bankers squirming - FT.com
Cometh the hour, cometh the acronym. Thus might run the unspoken motto of American financial policy these days.
After a string of plans and funds and programs and facilities, Treasury is now turning its attention to PPIP, the most recent incarnation of the original TARP, Paulson’s misguided attempt to purge bank...
Memo From Cairo - Why Freed Dissidents Pick Path... →
“There are, of course, many reasons different people in different cultures choose the path of most resistance. But the most compelling, the activists themselves say, particularly in a Middle Eastern culture that honors martyrdom, is that prison becomes a defining and hardening experience, cementing their convictions and removing any temptation to compromise their beliefs.
Curiously, Middle...
“The new medium is not bits, but networks (technically and socially, leveraging...”
– nice line from a comment on this post: Social Media - What Needs To Be In The Cloud? (via fred-wilson)
GovTrack: HR2521 Infrastructure Development Bank →
Rep Rosa DeLauro’s bill has both business and labor support. Promoted by Bob Hebert NYT Sunday op-ed.
Obama's Auto Plan Is Capitalism at Work - WSJ.com →
Scott Sperling of private equity fame explains why the restructuring programs being pushed by the Obama Administration are necessary. Furthermore, charges that Chrysler’s creditors got fleeced don’t stand up to scrutiny.
Israeli PM Debuts New Road Map For Continued... →
JERUSALEM (The Onion) — In a historic speech before the U.N. Tuesday, newly elected Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled a comprehensive plan to extend political discord and senseless violence in the Middle East through the next 25 years. Key elements of the 60-page road map include…
Irony-free emoticons?
@interfluidity: Hooray for the new new economy. (Really, irony off.) Tata building $8K condos for the "bottom of the pyramid". http://bit.ly/HGsTE
me: RT [plus] I need an irony-free emoticon.
me: I mean that sincerely. We need a way to sign irony-free in this irony-drenched world.
me: Esp in 140 chrts!
Acting In History - Niebuhr & Obama
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
Sully labelled this quote from Reinhold Niebuhr “Cheney Antidote”. And indeed, it’s a sort of exhortation to embrace and remain true to values, grounded in a realism that perserverance is hard.
The quote is from Niebuhr’s The Irony of American History, and I think it captures Obama’s view — glimpsed in passages of his...