Carol Loomis has written a "must read" article on derivatives which appears in the July 6 issue of Fortune Magazine as well as online at Fortune.com. At a time when regulation of derivatives is a major focus in Washington, it ...
CNBC interviewed US Bancorp CEO Richard Davis regarding his bank's repayment of TARP funds. In addition, Mr. Davis talks about retiring the ten year warrants that were issued as part of the TARP arrangement and projects that US Bancorp will ...
James Grant, publisher of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, appeared on CNBC today and commented on Federal Reserve policy and his outlook for interest rates and inflation. I found the following quote to be particularly interesting. Interested readers should view the ...
MidAmerican's Chairman David Sokol was interviewed by Bloomberg today in Washington. Mr. Sokol has been advocating for the elimination of the concept of trading carbon credits which is a central feature of the "cap and trade" system that is currently ...
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) held a conference on June 8 to address a number of important issues facing the municipal bond industry. SIFMA's President and CEO Timothy Ryan made opening remarks regarding the challenges facing municipal ...
Anyone who has been paying attention to discussions related to energy policy over the past few years has been hearing about a new "smart grid" that has the potential to play a major role in meeting the energy requirements of ...
Roger Lowenstein's work has been discussed in some detail on The Rational Walk over the past few months. Lowenstein is the author of Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist which was reviewed last month. More recently, he wrote While ...
In the video contained in this post, CNBC's David Faber interviews Andrew Zarrow, V1 Jets International CEO. It seems like many of the trends discussed by Richard Santulli earlier in the week are confirmed in this interview in terms of ...
The focus of The Rational Walk has always been on business and investment topics rather than political commentary, but lately is has become increasingly clear that the line between politics and business has ceased to exist when it comes to ...
The term "creative destruction" was used to promote countless business models of dubious value during the height of the dot com mania of the late 1990s. In the ensuing collapse, many observers have grown weary of this term and attribute ...
Fortune Magazine recently published an article outlining New Jersey's pension dilemma. Based on the information in this article, it appears that New Jersey could very well be the canary in the coalmine when it comes to the widespread pension crises ...
With the hurricane season officially starting on June 1, residents of the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts are no doubt listening carefully to the many forecasts that are being made regarding the number of "named storms" that are likely to occur ...
Many readers who visit this site regularly may have noticed that I have been experimenting with various types of advertisements over the past week. When I started writing a couple of months ago, generating revenue from the activity was not ...
At a time when most government officials in the executive branch and at the Federal Reserve continue to support the "bail out" approach, Thomas M. Hoenig, President of the Kansas City Federal Reserve bank and a voting member of the ...
Municipal bonds have traditionally been extremely safe investments with very low default rates and attractive tax exempt features for most investors. Municipal bond insurance has allowed state and local governments to obtain higher credit ratings, thereby generating significant interest savings ...
The well publicized failures of the credit rating agencies in recent years was the subject of intense scrutiny today at the SEC Roundtable on Credit Rating Agencies today in Washington DC. However, none of the reform proposals relieve investors of ...
While the strong first quarter results posted by Goldman Sachs on Monday seemed to surprise most observers, it really comes as no surprise that the firm is now seeking to free itself from the shackles of the TARP financing that ...
Despite gasoline prices that have fallen precipitously since the record high levels of mid 2008, it appears that interest in electric cars is still alive and well. In fact, efforts to come up with viable technologies could be accelerating. This ...
The Congressional Oversight Panel released a new report assessing the overall effectiveness of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) which was introduced six months ago. The executive summary is worth a quick review particularly given that TARP is very much ...
I found a recent article by Carol Loomis regarding AIG's continuing troubles to be quite interesting. As most Berkshire Hathaway shareholders know, Carol Loomis is a longtime friend of Warren Buffett and also edits his annual letter each year. Read ...