Search

Our Other Web Sites

Link to Spero Web Design Link to BWAM Shop

Translator

English flagItalian flagKorean flagChinese (Simplified) flagChinese (Traditional) flagPortuguese flagGerman flagFrench flagSpanish flagJapanese flagArabic flagRussian flagGreek flag
Dutch flagBulgarian flagCzech flagCroatian flagDanish flagFinnish flagHindi flagPolish flagRomanian flagSwedish flagNorwegian flagCatalan flagFilipino flag
Hebrew flagIndonesian flagLatvian flagLithuanian flagSerbian flagSlovak flagSlovenian flagUkrainian flagVietnamese flagAlbanian flagEstonian flagGalician flagMaltese flag
Thai flagTurkish flagHungarian flagBelarus flagIrish flagIcelandic flagMacedonian flagMalay flagPersian flag    

Page Navigation

Categories

Previous Posts

September 2010
S M T W T F S
« Aug «-»  
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
2627282930  

Switch site

Sign-up for Our RSS Feed

Click the icon to subscribe to the feed.

Archive for April, 2009

Business Schools, Incentives, Uncertainty, and the Financial Crisis

Andy Spero | April 30, 2009 | 0 Comment(s) |

What Should It Mean to Earn a Master’s Degree?

We don’t answer that question here, but shouldn’t one be required to master something?

It Was a Matter of Time

Since early October, we’ve wondered when we’d see the first editorial criticizing MBAs and business schools for their role in the ongoing financial crisis.1 In our mind, much of the blame should be shared between business types, i.e., MBAs, and so-called “quants,” with the majority of the blame placed on senior managers who permitted lax controls and misaligned incentives to… Read the rest

"We've Won Hundreds of Cases" (Out of How Many?)

Andy Spero | April 29, 2009 | 0 Comment(s) |

We heard a commercial on the radio today where an attorney crowed that he had “won hundreds of cases during the past several years.”

We suspect that he made that statement to sound impressive and absolutely successful. Otherwise, why bother?

Being skeptical, our immediate reply to both the car stereo and the chairman, who happened to be in the passenger’s seat was, maybe it should have been, “Yes, during the past several years, we’ve won hundreds of cases out the thousands (or possibly tens of thousands) that we’ve tried.” Of… Read the rest

Influenza Pandemic Stress Test, Part II

Andy Spero | April 28, 2009 | 0 Comment(s) |

Update: we have a few newer posts, too: Swine Flu and Bank Stress Tests and Today’s WSJ Reporting Errors per the Bank Stress Tests.

Spurred by news of swine flu outbreaks in Mexico and the USA, on Monday we wrote, A New Influenza Stress Test. In that post we asked whether banking regulators will require stress tests/scenario analyses that incorporate such a pandemic.

Obviously, the first-order effect of human suffering and loss overwhelm financial implications, but responsible regulators and bankers should consider the implications… Read the rest

Which Is More Egregious?

Andy Spero | April 28, 2009 | 1 Comment(s) |

This a new feature/question that we might add/ask on a regular basis.

There’s a nice, short article on The Wall Street Journal’s web site entitled, Calpers to Vote Against BofA Board. The title is self-explanatory.

The penultimate sentence in it is: “Bank of America has already taken $45 billion in capital from the federal government, some of it to help the bank cover losses stemming from its purchase of Merrill.”

The final sentence is: “Shareholders have also been up in arms about $3.6 billion in bonuses that were paid ahead… Read the rest

Server Problems

Andy Spero | April 28, 2009 | 0 Comment(s) |

If you attempted to visit us this morning but couldn’t it’s because our shared server was down. Generally, Fused Network offers excellent up-time and excellent customer service, but this morning was an exception.

By the way, if you’re interested in our site and firm but haven’t seen our visitor location map recently, we encourage you to view it. We don’t get millions of hits, but as you can see, we’re getting a decent number from all across the world.

Thanks for visiting.

One Less RINO

Andy Spero | April 28, 2009 | 0 Comment(s) |

We applaud Arlen Specter’s move to the Democratic Party. It injects a small bit of honesty into politics. In fact, his willingness to finally be truthful with himself and his constituents comes as a surprise to us. We doubt that we’re alone in that assessment.

Press Release: Spero Consulting Seeks Government Bailout

Andy Spero | April 27, 2009 | 0 Comment(s) |

At least through the summer (and maybe the fall)

Within the past two weeks, we read: (1) how General Motors (GM) is seeking an additional $5,000,000,000 ($5 billion) from the federal government–they may have gotten a bit less–and (2) how GM plans to close production for thirteen weeks this summer but also plans to  provide workers with full pay during the production hiatus.

The principals at Spero Consulting are not pride and are looking for a similar deal. We would gladly accept a government bailout to halt production (of consulting… Read the rest

Harsh Interrogation Techniques and Economic Terrorism

Andy Spero | April 27, 2009 | 0 Comment(s) |

On a Lighter Note

Now, this is mostly in jest, but the Obama administration’s ongoing mishandling of the Bush’s administration’s “harsh” interrogation techniques of political/religious terrorists coinciding with revelations from Andrew Cuomo’s investigation of Paulson and Bernanke and “forced” merger of the Bank of America and Merrill Lynch make us wonder.

To what extent will Mr. Cuomo go to get the truth? And would anyone complain if any of the parties were exposed to harsh interrogation methods, including, say, waterboarding or controlled head-slamming? (Despite what we wrote in Read the rest

A New Influenza Stress Test

Andy Spero | April 27, 2009 | 0 Comment(s) |

God forbid that such a scenario is realized, but one hopes that regulators are demanding and banks are preparing scenario analyses of a swine flu pandemic (on top of the ongoing global liquidity crisis and mortgage debacle).

We write “God forbid” because the first-order effect of the loss of life and human suffering would be horrific, but such a natural disaster would also be devastating for home values, mortgages, and mortgage-backed securities and could throw the country or regions of the country into a true depression, especially for those houses… Read the rest

The Supervisory Capital Assessment Program

Andy Spero | April 25, 2009 | 0 Comment(s) |

Update:  We have several newer posts on this topic, including a few on the need to include the effects of a potential swine flu epidemic on GDP in the scenario analyses and this one: SCAP, The Government’s Naive Stress Testing Exercise.

We read the SCAP document published on the Federal Reserve web site. It describes the government’s stress testing regime for the nation’s 19 largest banks. It’s all very interesting. (Well, not really.)

However, we thought the most… Read the rest

Next Page »