by Electronic Frontier Foundation • • Comments Off on Stephen Colbert Brilliant Takedown of Amazon’s Ridiculous Photography Patent (Video)
By Adi Kamdar: Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, lampoons Amazon’s absurd new patent on photography in front of a white background (brief video).
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The Brutal, Beneath-the-Surface, Slo-Mo Crash of Stocks
Even while the googly-eyed mainstream media celebrate the Dow’s record high, beneath the gloss, thousands of stocks are getting gutted. And the carnage is spreading.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Explosive Hidden Leverage Threatens To Blow Up the Markets
We don’t know what hedge fund manager Steven Cohen will do with the money he borrowed from Goldman Sachs. We don’t even know how much it is, though it’s a lot; the personal loan is backed by his $1 billion art collection. But we know how he’ll use it: cheap leverage.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Banks And Hedge Funds Make Curious Deal On New Structured Toxic-Waste Securities
New regulations force banks to get rid of CLOs. They’re similar to subprime-mortgage-backed CDOs that blew up in 2008. But CLOs are backed by junk corporate loans, including malodorous “leveraged loans.” And they’re booming again. So the banks made a deal.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Biggest Credit Bubble in History Cracks, Trips Up The Smart Money
For years, nothing could slow the tsunami of junk debt. But suddenly, something happened, and investors in leveraged-loan mutual funds, where the crappiest junk debt accumulates, ran scared and started pulling their money out. Consequences were immediate.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The Last Two Times This Happened, The Stock Market Crashed
It happened in 2000 and in 2007. With spectacular consequences. Now, it happened again. And hidden beneath the blue-chip highs, parts of the market are already crashing.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Who Is Getting Crushed in This Bull Market?
By now, this wondrous bull market constantly gets benchmarked against the dotcom bubble. It’s different this time, we’re told, even on NPR. But the wholesale destruction of financial assets has already started, one pocket at a time.
by Don Quijones • • Comments Off on Liars, Damned Liars, and Spanish Banks
By Don Quijones: “Spain’s banks are back on track,” the Spanish Banking Association announced to great fanfare. That’s the official story. But these banks reported financial results that “bear no relation to reality.”
