http://taibbi.rssoundingboard.com Just another WordPress weblog Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:50:11 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Lower credit risk means a lower price for protection. Zero implies zero risk. The higher the basis points, the higher the implied risk. When U.S. credit default swaps were first introduced, the price of protection was around two basis points. According to Bloomberg, the price for five-year protection was around ... http://taibbi.rssoundingboard.com/shorting-america-rocks When you have agents and hangers-on handing you money and naked women and Escalades from the age of 14 on, it’s bound to swell your head. Some athletes just get a worse case of it than others. via A Field Guide to Sports Egos | Men’s Journal. My new Men’s Journal piece is out, ... http://taibbi.rssoundingboard.com/a-field-guide-to-sports-egos Look at about the 5-minute mark of this video — Janet Tavakoli debating Rick Santelli about predatory lending. You basically have a whole panel of CNBC goons pooh-poohing the idea that predatory lending took place, setting up the inevitable revisionist history that the 2008 crash was caused by individual homeowners ... http://taibbi.rssoundingboard.com/santelli-on-predatory-lending-%e2%80%98you-can%e2%80%99t-cheat-an-honest-man%e2%80%99 MY health insurer here in California is Anthem Blue Cross. So far, my group policy hasn’t been affected by Anthem’s planned rate increase of as much as 39 percent for its customers with individual policies — but the trend worries me, as it should everyone. Rates are soaring all over ... http://taibbi.rssoundingboard.com/dems-get-religion-on-health-care-antitrust-exemption VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — They are gathering again at a Winter Olympics, now aging cold warriors. Thirty years ago, they played a game that has been called the greatest upset in Olympic history, a David-vs.-Goliath tale, a political metaphor, a miracle. That’s how many Americans remember the hockey game played at ... http://taibbi.rssoundingboard.com/ap-russians-still-sucking-on-%e2%80%98miracle-on-ice%e2%80%99 Saturday, March 13, 2010 7:30 p.m. A Pen Warmed Up in Hell: Matt Taibbi and Charles P. Pierce : Rolling Stone political columnist Matt Taibbi and author Charles P. Pierce (Idiot America), fresh from The Daily Show and elsewhere.. $25 ($20 for members); call 860-280-3130. via The Mark Twain House | Calendar. Just ... http://taibbi.rssoundingboard.com/re-the-mark-twain-house-event So my new article in Rolling Stone, “Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle,” is up and online. The piece was a lot of fun to write mainly because I got to learn a lot about con men I never knew before. But it was also challenging for a lot of other reasons. For ... http://taibbi.rssoundingboard.com/on-the-bailout-hustle Sorry for the lack of posts; I’ve been really sick for days. I hope to be back at it soon. What are you reading these days? And, are there issues I should be checking out? Let me know in the comments. http://taibbi.rssoundingboard.com/feeling-low Of course, we thought the same thing when Bay came up for discussion. As it turned out, the Sox dug in their heels on protective language in the event Bay had any injuries to his knees, a stance that ultimately blew up the deal and led to the Sox acquiring, ... http://taibbi.rssoundingboard.com/tony-mazz%e2%80%99s-sox-math To this day, the willingness of a Wall Street investment bank to pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to dispense investment advice to grownups remains a mystery to me. I was 24 years old, with no experience of, or particular interest in, guessing which stocks and bonds would rise ... http://taibbi.rssoundingboard.com/michael-lewis-wall-st-is-done