Conrad Black: Baron, Indicted criminal frauder…blogger? Sure, why not. The guy who was once the third biggest newspaper owner in the world, and who is now serving time in federal prison in Florida, thinks that John McCain fumbled with the potentially election-turning baillout bill.
And though most people don't care what incarcerated prisoners think of the political race, Tina Brown and her crew over The Daily Beast are going to give Black some extra fifteen minutes, maybe in the hopes that when he's sprung out of jail, he'll be a regular contributor to the site:
Does it seem like biz journalists are just getting lazy in reporting trends, now that we're all recessiony (or not)? Sure, it's fine and good to talk about how local businesses need to scrimp and save and can't get loans, and maybe even how the face of advertisement has shifted to appeal to more frugal-friendly consumers, but is it worth a whole trend report to say that marketers are using Halloween as a time to promote special deals? Using Hallmark holidays as a way to bump up consumer spending is as American as apple pie(TM), and the fact that Papa John's is promoting "'spooky specials' along with 'deals so good they’re scary,” isn't a sign we're in the middle of a major crisis of faith as a country (we are), but rather that Papa Johns has really unoriginal ideas.
Now, if we could get a story on the rise of little hobo costumes this Halloween, maybe it will finally hit home that the salad days are over.
Warren Buffett is either the richest person in the world or the second richest American, depending on which Forbes article you're reading today. Suffice to say: the man's got bank, especially now that he's gobbling up stake in GE.
With an estimated worth around $50.0 billion dollars, you'd think that Buffett would have some good financial tidbits for down on their luck investors in his new book, The Snowball. Unfortunately, most of the biography is just that: the humdrum goings on of an old coot who likes to play card games and yell at his wife:
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"According to a new survey from Prince & Assoc., 81 percent of investors with $1 million or more in investible assets plan to take money away from their current advisor. An even larger number — 86% — plans to tell other investors to avoid their advisor. Only 2% plan to recommend their firm to other investors. That’s of critical importance, since wealthy investors often get investment advice from each other." [WSJ]
Lehman Brothers, one of those FAIL banks from last week's economic meltdown, was purchased for a song by British contender Barclay Capital. And wouldn't you know it, the Brits didn't even wait seven days before changing the neon sign outside the bank's Times Square location:
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The banking crisis may have put an end to the Wall Streeter-fueled craze of bottle service (thank god!), but there's not a financial disaster yet invented that can keep depressed i-bankers from paying women much less educated than themselves to see their breasts and vaginae. It's the American way! CONTINUED »
True to Slate form, the bizarro-world web magazine's financial spin-off The Big Money sees the collapse of Wall Street as a good thing. Michael Lewis has five reasons for you to see Lehman Brothers, AIG, and Morgan Stanley as a glass half-full type of thing. Reason No. 3: Ordinary Americans get a lesson in low finance.: "It's been expensive but, then, so is kindergarten." Take that zing all the way to your collapsed stock portfolio! [The Big Money]
"She was smartly dressed in black pants, white collared dress shirt and black vest, very blond hair up in a bun. Her chic black shoes appeared to have a platform, and her name was etched on her cell phone." Not Sarah Palin, but a one Chelsea Clinton, stopping by a New York courtroom yesterday during a Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy hearing. Clinton, of course, works for the hedge fund Avenue Capital, run by Marc Lasry, who has a material interest in what happens to Lehman's $138 billion in securities. [WSJ]
Reports the completely devoid of spin Bloomberg News: "New York City `Well-Positioned' to Withstand Turmoil": 'New York City, facing less revenue from Wall Street amid bank losses and the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., is "well-positioned" to weather the decline, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.'
The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers (with assets of $639 billion). The fed's buyout of Merrill Lynch. The end of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as we know them. Sure, all of this is going to effect the average American somehow — your taxes will now be going toward a war you didn't support and a bank you didn't have an account with — but how will it effect … the luxury market? Art! Jewelry! Real estate! Big commissions are on the line here: CONTINUED »
"In one of the most dramatic two days in Wall Street's history, Merrill Lynch agreed to sell itself to Bank of America for roughly $50 billion to avert a deepening financial crisis, while another prominent securities firm, Lehman Brothers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection."
That was yesterday. Also, yesterday, Slate — the website where everything that is up is down, and everything that is right is wrong — launched The Big Money, its financial website that cares less about whether the Dow Jones is posting gains and more about taking conventional fiscal wisdom and arguing against it. CONTINUED »
Glenn Tilton, the CEO of United Airlines, must be pretty freakin' pissed at everybody from Bloomberg News, Google, Tribune Co.'s Florida Sun-Sentinel, and financial newsletter Income Securities Advisors, which turned a six-year-old news story about the airline's 2002 bankruptcy filing into a current, breaking alert — sending shareholders into fire sale mode and driving down the price of the stock so low and so quickly, NASDAQ froze all trading. So what retribution does United have? Well, they could sue any of those parties. Except they'd probably be laughed out of court. CONTINUED »
Yesterday we told you about how United Airlines went from a $12 stock for a $0.01 in a single morning, when a reporter from the financial newsletter Income Securities Advisors found a six-year-old story about United's former bankruptcy (it entered protection in 2002, and exited in 2006), treated it like it was breaking news, and posted the item to Bloomberg News, which got picked up by Tribune Co.'s Florida Sun-Sentinel. It turns out, Income Securities was just performing a regular Google News search when it found the item, which was posted to the Sun-Sentinel's list of most-viewed stories, but without a 2002 date. Which means Google News, supposedly powered by a complex algorithm superior to human editing, erroneously pulled the story into its newsfeed and treated it as a brand new article, leading others to believe the story was fresh. Shareholders jumped on the news, selling off United stock, and driving the shareprice down rapidly before trading was frozen. Congrats, Brin & Page.
Bloomberg News does it again: 'Shares of United Airlines lost nearly all their value Monday morning when a false rumor swept financial markets that the struggling carrier had filed for bankruptcy protection. United shares traded at one cent in late morning on the New York Stock Exchange, down 99.92 percent, or $12.29. … The circumstances surrounding the rumor were still being sorted out Monday afternoon. In a statement, United said the rumor occurred when the Web site of The Sun-Sentinel, a Florida newspaper, posted a six-year-old story from The Chicago Tribune archives about United's previous bankruptcy filing. The airline operated under bankruptcy protection from 2002 through 2006. "United has demanded a retraction from The Sun Sentinel and is launching an investigation," the airline said in a statement. On its Web site, however, The Chicago Tribune offered a different set of events. The Tribune said a reporter for Income Securities Advisors, an investment research firm based in Miami, found a Tribune story in the Sun-Sentinel archives during a search for information about bankruptcy situations. The reporter at Income Securities posted the story to Bloomberg News, where the rumor then spread rapidly, The Tribune said.' [NYT]
The U.S. government finally seized mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and gave them the ass-paddling of a lifetime. You can't entirely blame the foreclosure meltdown on these two financial giants, but you might as well, since everyone from investors to Wall Street kids to you, personally, will foot the bill for the national bail-out.
Oh, and in case the panties you bought with your tax rebate aren't in a twist enough, the chief execs of the foundering firms could be exiting the company with more than the supply closet pens; Daniel Mudd of Fannie and Richard Syron of Freddie stand to make $9.3 million and $14.1 million respectively when they gracefully bow out from the spotlight. Which is considerably less than their predecessors made but hey, those guys didn't manage to run their good names into the ground so they might have deserved those millions upon millions. Probably not though.
Silver lining? European stocks sky-rocketed today after promises that those affected by the subprime mortgage crisis will see some return now that good old Uncle Sam is finally stepping in and taking responsibility for his bastard offspring.
FiLife, the new financial website that launched this week with backing from both News Corp. Wall Street Journal and Barry Diller's IAC, whose aim is to "help consumers who want to improve their financial situation figure out how they stack up against their peers when it comes to income, household debt and savings," is basically a glorified way to see if you're earning more zeros than your neighbor.
Author, power lesbian, Saturday Night Live inspiration, and CNBC talking head Suze Orman recommends, in her O magazine column this month, that readers check their credit score on myFICO.com, which just so happens to be a website she has business dealings with. Also, this: Americans are entitled to one free credit report from each of the three credit bureaus every 12 months, which means no entering your credit card number on a checkout form to find out the same data Orman recommends you pay $49.95 for.
Below, two our favorite SNL moments. CONTINUED »
While Maria Bartiromo was watching the Dow go up and down, and Fox Business recapped the market while throwing back a few pints, the News Corp.-ownedWall Street Journal figured out what to do with its CNBC relationship, and Portfolio watched as staffers fled and gossip radiated, where was everyone calling out financial institutions on their risky lending practices? MediaChannel.org's Danny Schechter would certainly like to know.
Just as the mainstream press is quick to blame things like America's boredom for its plummeting Iraq coverage, they've also tucked away coverage that you're going to lose your home into the "not widely read business sections that focus on the ups and downs of the markets and the way the collapse of these arrangements have affected the fortunes of CEOS and business enterprises, not citizens, consumers and most of all homeowners."
And they were only too happy to do so: Many media outlets prospered financially from ignoring the coming crisis. CONTINUED »
Jim Cramer might have given questionable financial advice to his Mad Money viewers when it came to their investments in Bear Stearns. Some might say his suggestion – to keep your cash money in the bank, which went from $60 per share to $2 in a week – was not a smart move.
Shortly after launching black-interest site The Root, Slate's overseers at the Washington Post Co. are readying financial site The Big Money.
(No, really, that's what they're calling it. They're not going to change it even if you do start an email petition.)
Edited by James Ledbetter, the new pub is "a general interest site for people who have an interest in money and financial affairs and economics … but not specifically or necessarily who work in the finance industry."
So it's the Fox Business Network to all the CNBC's out there. Or maybe it's the MainStreet.com to all the TheStreet.com's out there?
Whatever. They're probably going to do a story on The Britney Spears Economy, and then we won't have to like the name or the content.
Editorial Director
