In my recent post about the capture of the Obama Administration by the financial services lobby, I said it was irrelevant whether they were deliberately looking to line the pockets of the banking industry. This is an important point as you decide whether to donate campaign money, how or whether to vote, and who to [...]

David Einhorn delivered a speech at the 2009 Value Investing Conference that is creating a lot of buzz in the blogosphere. He said a lot of interesting things about the investing and political climate.  A surprising amount of it comes out of the playbook here at Credit Writedowns.
Below are the quotes I want to highlight [...]

The title of this post is somewhat misleading – designed to be provocative to get you to read what I have to say. Indeed, I am going to defend Goldman Sach’s right to pay what it likes to its employees. But, I am also going to defend your right to be outraged and to look [...]

The banks have been the ones benefitting most from free money via the Federal Government and U.S. taxpayers.  Given 9.8% base unemployment and 17.0% comprehensive unemployment, it is a bit galling for ordinary Americans that these same institutions are making record profits and poised to hand out record bonuses. Detroit is one of the hardest [...]

In what is shaping up to be a common occurrence at these global meetings, protesters are shaking things up.  My understanding, however, is that there are more police on hand than protesters.  Rubber bullets, pepper spray and tear gas have been used.
Below is a five-minute video showing the mood surrounding the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh.
[...]

Barack Obama’s health insurance reform initiative is clearly foundering. So, his administration has pulled out the big guns. Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius on the Sunday morning talk shows. Obama himself had a prime time press conference on the issue. He has hosted a number of town hall meetings. The President has even written [...]

When news first broke regarding the ethnic tensions and violence in Xinjiang, China, I was not familiar with the situation there.  I have gotten up to speed and wanted to post a few videos and links for you on the situation there.
Wikipedia (population nearly 20 million):
Xinjiang … is an autonomous region (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) [...]

The remittanc income from Mexican and Central American immigrants working in the United States bck to their home nations is not the only huge remittance flow in the world. One of significant import is in Europe, where millions of indivuals from the former Eastern Bloc now work in Western Europe. However, as in the U.S. – Mexican connection, these remittances will be nosediving.

Below is an analysis from Morgan Stanley (with my boldng):

If you have noticed, Pakistan is in a real state of crisis right now. Given the fact that this country is both unstable and possesses nuclear weapons courtesy of A. Q. Khan, it stands to reason that everyone should be interested. The fact that it has a border with Afghanistan only makes things that much more urgent.

In this video on Charlie Rose, Steve Coll of the “New Yorker” discusses Pakistan with Joe Klein, Hasain Haqqani, Director of the Center for International Relations and Professor at Boston University, and Imtiaz Ali.