Amazing must-read Page One article from wsj.com on the fall of Bear Stearns (will try to find a non-premium access page) :
- ” Bear Stearns’s board of directors was whipsawed by the rapidly unfolding events, in particular by the pressure from Washington to clinch a deal, says one person familiar with their deliberations.
“We thought they gave us 28 days,” this person says, in reference to the terms of the Fed’s bailout financing. “Then they gave us 24 hours.” “”
- on Tuesday “They felt comfortable with their capital base of roughly $17 billion and were looking forward to reporting Bear Stearns’s first-quarter earnings”
- Fast forward to Thursday : “On Thursday evening, after customers had continued to pull their money out of Bear Stearns, the bank reached out to J. P. Morgan. By then, Bear Stearns’s cash position had dwindled to just $2 billion.”
5 months ago
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Granted I’m posting on Tuesday about a weekend FT article but it’s worth reading Alan Greenspan’s column “We will never have a perfect model of risk”.
Some choice excerpts:
“The most credible explanation of why risk management based on state-of-the-art statistical models can perform so poorly is that the underlying data used to estimate a model’s structure are drawn generally from both periods of euphoria and periods of fear, that is, from regimes with importantly different dynamics.”
“Thus it is important, indeed crucial, that any reforms in, and adjustments to, the structure of markets and regulation not inhibit our most reliable and effective safeguards against cumulative economic failure: market flexibility and open competition.”
Wow ! What about better regulation ? What about acknowledging that repealing the Glass-Steagall act was an aberration and leads us today to bailout Bear Stearns.
Who is going to confront Greenspan on his record ? I saw one recently released book advertised in Business Week : Greenspan’s Bubbles: The Age of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve
5 months ago
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To anyone who’s doubting it or still has a chip on the shoulder vis a vis our West Coast friends by the bay, the NY Tech scene is alive and well and bustling (even in the first months of a recession) !
Great local ideas/companies keep getting funded and the energy level remains sky-high (fingers crossed).
Friday night the Mashable crew put together an amazing MashMeetNYC with a great crowd and some really top-notch presentations : KickApps , Utterz and the most energetic man in the Web business James Gillmore from FaceySpacey .
I also got to meet David Karp and some other great members of our NY Tech scene.
Sat-Sun was BarCampNYC3 (which I helped organize) and 250 tech enthusiasts came to Brooklyn and shared an awesome amount of knowledge with each other. Andrew Baron from Rocketboom was there ! We had folks from Montreal, Toronto, Seattle as well as the city by the bay.
Let’s keep NY tech bustling and attractive !
5 months ago
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What can be added to the non-stop coverage of the Spitzer train wreck since yesterday afternoon but utter disbelief as he still has not resigned !
I’m all for the “private matter” angle except if you’re Eliot “I’m a Steamroller” Spitzer, holier amongst the holies….
It’s 5.30pm EST, 24 hours after the NY Times’ bombshell announcement and yet good ole Eliot is still waiting it out, for legal reasons most probably -)
If impeachment proceedings aren’t underway tomorrow if will be surprised.. See http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080311/D8VBE4G80.html
5 months ago
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