Sitemap - 2009 - John Hempton's Newsletter

Keynes on British industrial history

Kodak, Bill Gates and efficient markets

When regulators can’t do math: gas pipeline edition

Gratuitous advertising time: The Nick Hempton band is playing in New York

Getting it wrong about getting it wrong about coffee

Getting it wrong over coffee

The Ides of March and the Fed exit strategy

The missing details: Bronte Beach edition

The media market has a conservative bias

Fannie Mae’s results – oh, and what if Bank of America reported the same way…

Zion sent their lawyers to get us. It is like being flogged with Jericho lettuce. I drop one on them. They can’t psychologically handle it.

The new GSE as zero meme – laying the assumptions bare – and a modest plan for Obama

The goldsmith as retail bank

Whatever pleased the Lord, he did, in heaven and on earth, in the seas, and all the depths…

Are the Spanish banks hiding their losses? Looking at the American data

Ducks in sewerage treatment works, drug resistance, dumb luck and investing

The new rapid SEC

Politics makes people believe the strangest things – so let’s try make money from their stupidity

Hoisted from the archives – my old post on Freshwater and Saltwater macroeconomic theory

Vested self interest and the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – closing the modelling sequence

Betting on – or against – Obama hatred

Modelling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - Part IX

Sorry – no posting for a while…

If we want to change the world – we can… we just have to think we can. Kaupthinking was beyond thinking…

Modelling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – Part VIII

Modelling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – Part VII

Health Care Reform and single payer – an Australian perspective

Modelling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – Part VI

Modelling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – Part V

Modelling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – Part IV

Mr Big Wells and the new faster SEC

Modelling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – Part III

Modelling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – Part II

Stink boats and the forthcoming spectacular inventory bounce

Ethics, journalism, the web and the profits of brokerage businesses – oh, and Paul Krugman

Follow up on high frequency trading

High frequency traders – a phoney explanation when nobody seems to know the real explanation

Salary package includes sonic screwdriver and attractive assistant: Australian citizens only

Not buy and hold

How did the SEC get it this wrong? The judge throws out the Mark Cuban insider trading charges

The ubiquity of Coca Cola

Australia – the lucky but unbalanced country

The second derivative is bad

Creation Science, oil drilling, naked shorts and constitutionally protected stock fraud

Request to BondInvestor from the comments

Brad DeLong and the fairy tale of Wall Street

Mr Krugman and Mr Ferguson: a suggested interpretation (very long and ultra wonkish)

In defence of naked short selling – or why the crackdown on a phoney problem is costing taxpayers at least a billion dollars

How brilliantly run is Freddie Mac?

A question about appropriate ethical standards for lawyers

Do you or did you ever have friends in the FDIC?

Goodbye to the Sole True Hero (Sol Trujillo goes back to San Diego)

Japan, Korea, Detroit and banker bonuses

A tale of two banking crises: Japan and Korea

When the stockmarket does the analysis

The hookers no longer cost too much: geopolitics and the price of prostitutes in the Baltic States

For the benefit of Gaius Marius

JP Morgan lied to regulators

Christopher Flower’s short memory

Muddling through – why the American banking system will not turn Japanese – Part II

Why American banks will not wind up looking like Japanese banks - Part 1

How might the BofA stress test work

All lies and jest

The real economy sucks

In an odd coincidence

Stress test results: Who is leaking?

Paradigm Global, the Bidens and allegedly fraudulent hedge funds – a summary

Another shameless plug for the Cooler Mr Hempton

What was it like to be a Stanford salesman?

Just how sloppy is Paradigm Global?

AIG – a really neat run through

A statement by Paradigm - and some questions

The economics of Paradigm Global – alleged substance abuse and alleged ponzi schemes

The first post I did not make on Ponta Negra and its link to the Bidens

Alleged fraudulent hedge fund associated with the Vice President’s family harasses blogger

A last hurrah for the rational markets hypothesis - Biota Holdings redux

Can the stock market count?

Biota - a wild speculation

ANZAC Day edition

Liquidity and banks – a primer

Mixed up policy responses and liquidity preference

Welcome to the 21st Century

Bramdean did reply

Goldman’s Orphan Month

Farewell Greg Newton

Bed and Breakfast capital at Bramdean Alternatives

That Legacy Word

The seemingly criminal Sheila Bair*

A little bit of careful thinking – and why Krugman’s despair is misplaced

Rortybomb argues my point (though he didn't mean to)

Submission to the FDIC on the Legacy Loan Program

Covering the Ricks short

Sheila Bair is either a criminal or a grotesquely incompetent stark raving idiot

Monetary union and banks - some thoughts

The case for letting bankers rip us off

Watch those baskets: Why Citigroup should be allowed to merge with Wells Fargo

Why the Countrywide guys should be allowed to get mega-rich

The biggest problem with the Geithner plan

Steve Waldman's dark musings

Felix Salmon misrepresents me...

The Treasury held a blogger's conference call...

Keener body surfers than me

Brad deLong joins me!

Geithner's part plan

Weekend edition: racial profiling at the beach

AIG bonuses

Gold is very expensive

Fannie versus Freddie credit performance

Financial chauvinism

Krugman’s illogic extended

Accrued interest on Voodoo maths

Paul Krugman’s false logical step

Fools seldom differ

Optimism Porn – used car prices

Voodoo maths and GE

Jon Stewart's takedown of CNBC

Weasel words from Keith Sherin

Polish hookers don’t cost too much

Good behaviour and General Electric

An uncomfortable observation for GE common

Hey guys – you can make a much better investment than Warren Buffett

From the wonderful vaults of General Electric

Memo to Jeffrey Immelt – if you are going to lie you have to do it more convincingly than this

They read me in Washington!

Wrong again - on AIG

HSBC are to blame

Restructuring AIG – letting the mothership go

Four times slaughtering a dead horse

Trying to thrice slaughter a dead horse

Ideology over numbers

A series of quarterly numbers

Memories of the bull market

Corus bank

We are not close to being Swedish yet

The cooler - better looking Hempton

Do they read in Washington?

Bank solvency and the "Geithner Plan"

Shark attack

Tapes and films – the data-point from hell

Private equity involvement in the bailout and leverage

Don’t believe what they say

Not ordinary fires

How good is the Wall Street Journal?

Weekend edition: The conspiracy to keep you poor and stupid

How to guarantee your job in a Spanish bank

Those wonderful shops

Smashed up old fuddy-duddy guys

John Paulson accuses his competitors of theft or fraud

Bad tax policy and bad government process – GM as a test case

Freshwater and Saltwater: macroeconomic theory and losing money

Scandinavian bank collapse - not all the same

The perfect appointment

What is a non-performing loan?

Cute

Reaction to the Helicopter post

Why the Federal Reserve should LITERALLY throw money out of helicopters

Felix Salmon asks the question: is nationlisation contagious?

Scandinavian bank nationalisation and due process

The last bank with an antidilution clause...

Zero in Japan versus zero in America

Decline and fall of the British Aristocracy

Buiter's Modest Proposal

Obama: hotter than sex

Luigi Zingales has it right

Lest you think I disagree with Krugman too much

A slogan for the new administration: nationalisation after due process

Voodoo maths and dead banks

Sweden, Norway and a request for some decent macroeconomic models

HSBC are thugs (sorry “partners”)

Riots in Riga

Book review – Gerald Stone’s Who killed channel 9?

How diabolically desperate are the oil exporting states?

Lessons from shorting JGBs – the credible promise to be reckless

Satyam - what were the lenders thinking?

Auditors - a follow up...

A call to sensible conservatives who still think the enlightenment was a good idea

Choice of audit firm – a request for comments from readers