http://matt-that.com Self... Absorbed Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:46:47 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The S&P 500 fell below 1000 today. The DOW below 9500.  Some call for a DOW in the 8000 range, others as low as the 7000 range over the next year. Jeff Mackey from CNBC put it rather well the other day from his chair on CNBC's Fast Money, when ... http://matt-that.com/2008/10/07/markets-fall/ If this isn't the funniest album cover ever...its definetly close. http://matt-that.com/2008/10/05/slam-dunkn-hoes/ Its shaping up to be another memorable October for people working in, or who report on, the Financial sector. The last 12 months have shown that anything is possible in financial markets. Credit spreads have widened to never before seen levels. Any short-term lending mechanics, but especially Commercial Paper, are ... http://matt-that.com/2008/10/03/stocktober/ Today I had an argument with a scarecrow. A scarecrow is the name I've given to the majority of today's Republicans -- those who even though they are not neo-conservative, follow as blindly as they do the church, the Republican party talking-points. I call them scarecrows because they are empty-headed and rely ... http://matt-that.com/2008/10/01/scarecrow/ The credit markets have pretty much frozen as banks are unwilling to lend to consumers or each other in a deafening reduction of confidence. Many banks made mortgage loans with impossible terms or to unqualified borrowers. These banks then invested in securities backed by these now failing loans. It is this ... http://matt-that.com/2008/09/26/my-idea-for-banks-lending-problems/ So its about time we reintroduce an old friend. I brought him -- the idea -- out a bit early. And then put him away because the idea is alarmist. Its an idea I've hated to have fostered at all quite frankly, but its one that is hard to deny ... http://matt-that.com/2008/09/23/running-the-worlds-biggest-hedgefund/ "Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature - that baby beating its breast with its ... http://matt-that.com/2008/09/16/tell-me-the-truth/ They are certainly all interesting-- the reasons behind Google's release of a new platform for web applications, that is. Its especially interesting the platform is admittedly disguised as browser project, one named for its user interface and explained with comic books -- Chrome. Arguably, this is the sort of thing ... http://matt-that.com/2008/09/02/the-chrome-web/ No matter how many seasons you spend on the Internet, you can still be skull-smacked with surprise by the things you'll come across.  Another summer is all but over, Rover. Before the summer is gone entirely though kids, maybe you ought to get out your Winter coat, hoodie, hat and gloves ... http://matt-that.com/2008/09/02/caninus/ One of the most observable yet understudied socioeconomic changes in the US over the last century, has been the integration of a credit system whose sum value while virtual, has been forcibly bloated to equal that which was actual. It is a structure which has inflated the value of American ... http://matt-that.com/2008/09/02/dinner-or-a-movie/