In stringing together the daisy chain of flawed risk analysis in which we are now all entangled—I am reminded of poor daft garlanded Ophelia drifting downstream to her sorry end—no one played a more heinous part than the rating agencies. That they are still in business, let alone regarded as minimally credible, I find amazing, Read More
On Wall Street, and on parts elsewhere concerned with Wall Street, the non-news snows thick and fast. On last week’s Daily Beast, the engaging online “aggregator” edited by Tina Brown, Edward Jay Epstein wrote in revelatory dudgeon about the fact that Berkshire Hathaway owns roughly 20 percent of Moody’s. The big rating agency is certainly Read More
So here it is at last, the distinguished thing.” Thus spake Henry James when the old boy with the hooded cloak and scythe cocked a bony come-hither finger from the foot of the great novelist’s bed. And exactly my sentiments when into my trembling hand was pressed a copy of the premier issue Read More
In New York, the way we live now, to relinquish or be denied one’s boldface identity, whether in the form of a column mention or a byline, is to incur invisibility or social death (which amount to the same thing). I discovered this when I gave up writing in this space regularly.
On the other Read More
Other readers of The Times of Jan. 27 were doubtless as fascinated as your correspondent by Landon Thomas Jr.’s account of the plans for a party to be held on Feb. 13 to celebrate the 60th birthday of private-equity pasha Steve Schwarzman. Fascinated, may I say, on several counts.
For someone my age, who knew Read More
In the 15 years during which I more or less regularly conducted a column for this newspaper, I can’t recall presuming to address issues of foreign policy more than once or twice. I suppose this is because I’ve always found the question of what kind of country we want this one to be more interesting Read More
In 1992, I wrote a short book about a number of things going on in this country that I thought we as a polity would be well advised to take a hard look at before they got hopelessly out of control. My focus was mainly on what I saw as the developing takeover of what Read More
Never say never. So I’m reminded, in an acidly genial manner, by friends who’ve learned that for most of August I’ve rented an apartment in Sag Harbor, the village in which I’d lived from 1993 to 2000 and to which, on removing to Brooklyn, I’d vowed never to return. But here I am.
This was Read More
A fortnight ago, the Federal Reserve raised its base rate for the 17th time in two years, to 5.25 percent. The purpose of the hike was to fight inflation, classically defined as too much money chasing too few goods. Higher interest rates are thought to suppress the demand for credit, and with it, the specter Read More
A fortnight ago, the Federal Reserve raised its base rate for the 17th time in two years, to 5.25 percent. The purpose of the hike was to fight inflation, classically defined as too much money chasing too few goods. Higher interest rates are thought to suppress the demand for credit, and with it, the specter Read More
Affordable Housing or Lack Thereof
