It’s that time of year in Minnesota again. Halloween? Hard to forget that that’s tonight, if you have kids in your household. Shorter days and colder weather? That, too. But I was thinking of deer hunting season. I know when it starts not because I hunt — or even know which end of a gun...Read More
No Longer AWOL on Financial Reform Notwithstanding a very long public record of Wall Street self-dealing, treachery, and greed on a scale never before witnessed in American (world?) history, New York Times columnist (and St. Louis Park native) Tom Friedman has been silent on the need for systemic financial and political reform. Until today. Our Congress...Read More
Better Title: ‘Michael Lewis, Recycled’ It’s hard to find fault with Michael Lewis, one of the best business writers extant (or ever, for that matter). And the prose and insights in his latest effort, Boomerang, certainly don’t disappoint. So, what’s the problem? All but one of the five essays that comprise the book (the one on Iceland, titled “Wall...Read More
Straight Talk on the Financial Crisis. Finally. “By now it is pretty clear that it was faith in the techniques of modern finance, stoked in part by the apparent huge financial rewards, that enabled the extremes of leverage, the economic imbalances and the pretenses of the credit rating agencies to persist so long.” Quick, which...Read More
“If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing, Papa’s Gonna Buy You a Diamond Ring” You can scarcely pick up (OK, click on) an Op-Ed page these days without encountering the latest housing remedy du jour. Today’s proposal is courtesy of Alan Blinder, Princeton professor and former Federal Reserve official: As nationalized companies that dominate the mortgage market,...Read More
What’s in a Word Letter? OK, it’s a little cute (a lot?), but consider how little separates the words “induct” (“Edina Realty Founder Emma Rovick inducted in Realtor Hall of Fame”) and “indict” (“Wall Street bad guy indicted for fraud, insider trading”). The difference? Where “induct” has a “u,” indict has an “i.” And maybe there’s...Read More
