Although most commentators concede that the free market does a decent job providing regular goods and services day in and day out, for some reason they believe that when it comes to unlikely but catastrophic events, government intervention is necessary. An excellent example of this misguided...
Markets are ruthlessly efficient, meaning in large part that people will not undertake investment projects with risk characteristics that are not aligned with savers' preferences. All profitable opportunities...
As late as 1999, oil was trading at $10 per barrel and gold at $250 per ounce, down from their nominal peaks in 1980 of $39 and $850 respectively. And that's not even adjusted for the fact that the value of a dollar was a lot lower in 1999 than in 1980. Many pundits at the time argued that...
Today it was announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had a material weakness in the internal controls over its financial reporting. The SEC avoided a big fat "E" last year via its...
Peter Eavis has an interesting piece on Fannie Mae and the way it changed how it discloses its bad loans. Fannie's loss ratio appears to be escalating while Fannie's management is...
Leland C. Brendsel is accused of presiding over accounting manipulations and running Freddie Mac in a reckless manner. Buffett, one of the most successful and revered investors, sold a huge stake in the mortgage funding company before the manipulations came to light, and the
Remember that Citigroup, Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have formed a superfund to bail out troubled structured investment vehicles (SIV). The US Treasury Department and Henry Paulson "back" this plan...
Sarbanes-Oxley, of course, was just a small step along the yellow brick road that will lead to total rule over private industry, especially in the realm of accounting and audit. Talk is heating up regarding the new Treasury Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession....
David Weild, former vice chairman and executive vice president of The NASDAQ Stock Market, speaks out on SOX. He makes some sober remarks, but at the same time he walks on coals...
Markets are ruthlessly efficient, meaning in large part that people will not undertake investment projects with risk characteristics that are not aligned with savers' preferences. All profitable opportunities...
