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The (short) week that was

I hope you have tomorrow off. I do. So, my weekly podcast, After the Bell, is available now. Yesterday marked the start of the fiscal year for many states, and it wasn’t a good beginning. On this week’s podcast, I find out more about trading IOUs in California and what sneaky things banks might be up to behind the scenes. Musical assistance from Creedence Clearwater Revival, Elliott Smith and Ray Charles. In-house help from Phyllis Owens, Fiona Ng and Hunter Ochs. You can listen to the podcast below, but if you’d like it to download automatically each week, here’s the link for that. Happy 4th!

Don't try this at home

There’s a British guy who set out this year to build a toaster from scratch. Think about that for a second. He started by mining for the raw materials using a hair dryer.

Continue reading Don't try this at home

A must-read on AIG

If you want to know what happened at AIG, a new Vanity Fair article gets as deep as anyone’s been so far. The author - not surprisingly - is Michael Lewis, the guy who wrote Liar’s Poker. He knocks this stuff out the park. The title of the article is The Man Who Crashed the World.

Continue reading A must-read on AIG

Morning Reading

The job numbers are discouraging, although the unemployment rate only ticked up .1% in June. I think the worst statistic is how long people are going without a job — a median of four months. That’s twice as long as December of 2007. The number of people unemployed for 7 months has tripled to 4.4 millilon. But hey, Wall Street employees may have little to worry about.

Continue reading Morning Reading

I'd stop trading our stock if I were you

How often does a public company issue a press release telling investors not to buy their stock? GM did it today. It’s actually the second time in a month that GM has warned people — proceed at your own risk.

Continue reading I'd stop trading our stock if I were you

I owe you

California is on the fast track to a financial train wreck. The state legislature and the governor can’t agree on how to solve a $24 billion budget deficit, and the new budget year has started. So, beginning tomorrow, the state will have to hand out IOU’s to people, including contractors, college students and welfare recipients. This ought to be interesting.

Continue reading I owe you

Dumbest business moments

This is pretty entertaining/revealing. Fortune has a list of the dumbest moves in business for 2009. There’ve been a lot of them, and the year’s only half-over.

Continue reading Dumbest business moments

Out of the burbs, into the city

Looks like the recession is having a profound effect on where people are living. Census numbers out today show that the population in older cities, like New York and LA, is gaining or holding steady. But the Sun Belt boomtowns aren’t booming anymore.

Continue reading Out of the burbs, into the city

Morning Reading

Debating trickle-down theories, a high school classmate remembers Bernie, a financial column that’s actually a chain email(?) and a by-the-mile driving tax gets more serious consideration. Those are among the items that grabbed my attention this morning:

Continue reading Morning Reading

Goldman strikes back

The other day, I pointed out an article in Rolling Stone magazine that’s getting a lot of attention. It’s called “The Great American Bubble Machine,” and in it, writer Matt Taibbi goes to town on Goldman Sachs. I quote: “The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.” Well, Goldman thinks this is hysterical.

Continue reading Goldman strikes back

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