August 31, 2007
Most Read Stories (31-Aug-2007 9:39:44)
Here are the top five most read stories on the Bloomberg in the last day with selected excerpts (and my comments, if any, in italics).
As of 31-Aug-2007 at 9:39:44 (Beijing time):
- U.S. Stocks Retreat, Led By Banks; Goldman, Merrill Shares Fall
- Bernanke May Hear Call for Fed Activism on Regulation
- Hamptons Helicopter Gridlock Stirs Up Air Rage on the Ground
- Unsafe at Any Rating, CDO Speeds to CCC From AAA
- Seeking Sex Is Now a Crime, Senator Craig Learns
“Freddie Mac fell the most in four years after the second-biggest U.S. mortgage finance company said the housing slump cut profit by 45 percent … Freddie Mac owns or guarantees about one in every five U.S. residential mortgages.”
“Aside from considering a greater focus on asset prices, the Fed needs to explore whether it should coax or require additional disclosures from banks and hedge funds.”
“Flyers [paying $400-$800 one way] avoid a drive that can take over three hours or a Long Island Rail Road commute that’s, at best, 2 hours, 16 minutes.”
“You left the office Tuesday owning a AAA rated security. By the time you got back to your desk on Wednesday morning, it was eight steps below investment grade in a category S&P defines as ‘currently vulnerable to nonpayment.’ Try explaining that to your pension-fund trustees … ‘The [structured investment] vehicles are not structured to forcibly liquidate assets in times of crisis,’ Moody’s said. Their ability to access several sources of finance ‘obviates the need to liquidate large buckets of assets at potentially the worst period in the life of the vehicle.’”
Sounds like Moody’s risk assessments and methodology require further “refinement.”
“If homosexual conduct is even alleged against a closeted man, he has to either choose the quickest and quietest resolution possible or risk revealing the truth. That would probably mean losing his job, his family, the respect of his community.”
Or he could issue a statement similar to Sir Norman Fry’s
August 31st, 2007 at 10:49 am
Chairman,
I thought you might enjoy this!
CDt
August 31st, 2007 at 11:12 am
CDt: Flickr is blocked in China and that image is hosted at Flickr so I can’t see it … if you can copy it and email it to me, that would be nice.
I agree that urban Chinese women are obsessed with being “pale” … the skin-lightening charlatans do a roaring business here. I had dinner the other day with a beautiful girl who said, out of nowhere, “I’m so dark (黑)” … I told her she was crazy, but it’s impossible to convince them they look fine.
August 31st, 2007 at 11:30 am
I forget that Flickr is blocked, you can also see the image here.
August 31st, 2007 at 11:55 am
Jake: Thanks, ah yes, the unfortunately named “Jissbon” condom provides protection from unwanted sunlight among other things; are you still in Beijing?
August 31st, 2007 at 1:34 pm
W$J: Bush Moves to Aid Homeowners
August 31st, 2007 at 2:15 pm
If you use mozilla firefox you can get around that by installing the following addons …
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3239
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addons/policy/0/4286/16199
you may also need to install a proxy list, which I have if you want.
August 31st, 2007 at 2:53 pm
@moom: You have anything to add? I’m not a fan of simply posting links, especially to walled-off content.
@Nik: Yeah, I have the workaround at home but the office computers are all IE and there’s no way to install Firefox so I just have to suffer the few hours I’m at “work.”
September 1st, 2007 at 1:14 am
@C. Maoxian: I’m back in the States at the moment but will likely be back in Beijing either late September or early October