There’s a mystery on Wall Street. Merrill Lynch last week wrote off $8.4 billion in its subprime mortgage business, a figure revised up from $4.9 billion, yet Goldman Sachs reported an excellent quarter and didn’t feel the need for any write-offs. The real secret of the difference is likely to be in the details of […]

The long world boom, driven by cheap money and resulting in high commodity prices, has had one overwhelming disadvantage: it has empowered a series of economic fruitcakes — national leaders and private sector investors who operate on principles that make no economic sense. Without Schumpeteran “creative destruction” there is no force separating the sound from […]

As the earnings season in the US stock market gets into full swing, the Dow Jones and Standard and Poors indices go from strength to strength, setting records about every other day. Yet their exuberance has failed to focus on one important factor: corporate earnings have peaked for this cycle and are set to decline […]

Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation urged Thursday that mortgage servicers should force mortgage pools to reduce the long term interest rate at which subprime mortgages refix after the first few years, fixing the rate instead at the initial “teaser” rate. I trust no Bear’s Lair reader is remotely surprised at this […]

Senator Barack Obama (D.-IL) has proposed that the income ceiling on social security contributions be abolished, in order to balance the system. However his solution ignores the much greater Medicare deficit and fails to address the central problem: the system needs balancing because we are living longer without working longer. If we are to enjoy […]