Comments for News Blogging

Comment on July 4th by Clare Tremper

Clare Tremper — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 06:28:09 +0000

You should be a better known blogger

Comment on Solving The Financial Crisis by Bankruptcy Lawyer Dallas

Bankruptcy Lawyer Dallas — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:21:56 +0000

I hope it gets solved soon, I can’t handle all this gloomy news anymore.

Comment on This Is Not Okay by Nancy Warner

Nancy Warner — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:15:23 +0000

IF they had the best and the brightest, they wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with.

Comment on AIG – Check Me On This, Please by kkrahel

kkrahel — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:22:46 +0000

I did not mean to conflate the different components of AIG, per se. However, they do both affect the overall corporation, so they cannot be disaggregated when discussing the safety of insurance policies and the stability of the corporation.

Thank you for the distinction between insurance and derivative instruments. The reason I did not make that distinction in my explanation is because AIG was able to issue the credit-default swaps with AAA ratings because of AIG’s overall access to AAA ratings, which illustrates the connection between the financial services division and the state of the rest of AIG.

Comment on AIG – Check Me On This, Please by Dave Rex

Dave Rex — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:50:19 +0000

If you’re interested in any inaccuracies in the response to your friend…

I suspect that you may be conflating the legitimate insurance component of AIG (which writes a lot of automobile and homeowner policies) with credit default swaps (which can be thought of as “insurance” on investments). Technically, the credit default swaps (which brought AIG to its knees and to the federal trough) are not insurance, but a derivative instrument that pays when the original investment defaults.

AIG is a big conglomerate and, to the best of my knowledge, its insurance component is doing reasonably well. It’s AIGs financial services division that wrote all those nasty CDSs which choked the company and put it on the ropes.

Regards,
DAR

Comment on Thank You, Captain Obvious by xw

xw — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 03:18:30 +0000

….seriously

Comment on Actual Unemployment Is 13.9%; Rising As Fast As During Great Depression by kkrahel

kkrahel — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:09:56 +0000

The figures are only up to January, they don’t include the February 8.1% unemployment numbers. Furthermore, the unemployment rate is expected to track with the U-6 since they are related; the U-6 includes the unemployment rate and both are correlated to similar forces.

Is that what you were questioning?

Comment on Actual Unemployment Is 13.9%; Rising As Fast As During Great Depression by MasonMcD

MasonMcD — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:02:02 +0000

That can’t be right. The blue line should be at 8.1, but it appears to track with U-6.

Comment on Time To Get Pissed by Colin

Colin — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:57:15 +0000

Isn’t the point of a corporation to sever the liability of the company from the liability of the people?

Comment on The “News” In “Brief” by Finally “Solving” The Financial Crisis: Nationalize The Banks « News Blogging for the Revolution

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 04:12:21 +0000

[...] I also talked about the prospects of the nationalization of banks a couple of weeks ago. [...]