Articles

Magnetar’s Capital New Trade

At Policymic.

If it’s all about business, then, perhaps, Magnetar can halt its cheap displays of benevolence. A $25,000 donation by the property manager to staff one police officer at one of city’s schools would be a nice gesture if it weren’t accompanied by the attempt to strip the very same community of $1.39 million. If Magnetar really wants to repair its image from times past and to demonstrate its goodwill to the local community, there’s a great and easy way to do it: Pay property taxes and stop extracting value at the expense of the locals.

My New Article on Government Shutdown.

At policymic.

While a threat of default is very real with our dysfunctional Congress, very few are under the illusion that a default would happen due to a real U.S. insolvency. It’s not that the U.S. can’t pay up, it’s that the mechanism for sending the checks is broken. Apparently, this is enough for investors to be sanguine about U.S. debt.

Unemployed are more risk-taking and entrepreneurial than businesses

My latest article for policymic.

We hear about “uncertaintly” from business leaders on a daily basis. They can’t plan ahead and they can’t hire anybody. As if any business was ever about certainty.

So the unemployed took over where businesses have left off. There’s a $2 trillion shadow economy where people work for cash.

Big Banks should Deleverage or Perish (My follow up in Am. Banker)

Big Banks should deleverage or perish.

But there’s a bright side, albeit with a cruel irony, to such institutional failure. If we’re powerless to break up the banks, then we’re also powerless to bail them out should they fail. There will be no more bailouts, because we’ve simply run out of options.

Jamie Dimon Should Embrace TBTF reform (My new article in the American Banker)

Here’s my new take on TBTF problem.

To summarize, to embrace the TBTF reform is a winning issue for Jamie Dimon. It has a limited downside/unlimited upside an has a potential to repair his tarnished reputation and turn him into  the industry leader. He holds a winning hand and doesn’t know it.