George Soros and Toxicity

So yesterday we ran a news item about George Soros’ comments on banker pay (he thinks regulators should have a say) and credit default swaps (he called them “toxic instruments”). Soros made these comments at a banking conference on southern England.

Apart from being amused at my own thought that I was surprised England even lets Soros into the country these days, I didn’t really give the item much thought. After all, few people would know more about excessive compensation than George Soros. (more…)

Sometimes cartoonists just nail it. Here’s today’s Non Sequitur:

The Bear Out There
So much has been written about Bear Stearns the past three days, much of it by the Wall Street Journal’s Kate Kelly, that it doesn’t seem like there’s much left to say. So I won’t, other than to provide links to yesterday’s and today’s stories by Ms. Kelly and note, once again, the quality of the reporting.
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Back in the saddle today, although still trying to catch up from a backlog of work, hence the late posting.

Knocked on Their ARSes
The Chicago Tribune reports that Nuveen Investments Inc. thinks it may have figured out a work around work around for the frozen auction-rate securities market.

“Nuveen said Wednesday that it has arranged support that would allow it to issue up to $1.75 billion in a new variable-rate debt instrument that officials think could replace the troubled auction-based securities. “If we are successful in completing our efforts to develop VRDP, and market it to investors, we believe we can achieve our key goals of reducing costs of leverage over time for common shareholders of Nuveen municipal funds while providing liquidity at par for ARPS holders,” said Nuveen Investments Executive Vice President Bill Adams.
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‘So-Called Risk Management’
Commercial banks and other financial institutions need to beef up their ability to detect and protect themselves against risks like the credit and mortgage debacles, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Thursday. The trio of crises—housing, credit and financial—have exposed weaknesses in financial firms’ so-called risk-management practices. That is their ability to sufficiently detect and hedge against risks.

Huh. I had no idea.
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Going Dow-n

I know that Rupert Murdoch wants to turn the Wall Street Journal into a national newspaper along the lines of the New York Times, and I guess I can understand why. Ego certainly has something to do with it, as does his desire to provide a national print platform for conservative views, similar to what Fox News does over the airwaves. But to me, appropriating one of the world’s finest business publications, which has over the years featured some of the best writing in journalism, seems like the wrong way to go about it.
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