Monday Musings

I'm not feeling 100% (yet) today, but I have been slacking here and think I need to write something! So here are some soundbites....

The Economist is backing up all the intuition about the cowboy days of securitization causing the economic problems going on in the U.S. right now with empirical evidence. Of course, now we have gone 180 degrees in the other direction instead of a happy middle ground everyone can live with. On the commercial side, I understand that "covenant light" loans may have been out of order but now we've gone completely the other way. Thanks to Doug Cornelius for pointing this out.

In the Santayana department: last week, Illinois Republicans almost pulled a Hart-Fairchild by giving Andy Martin (f/k/a Anthony Martin-Trigona) 35% of the vote. The winner, Dr. Steve Sauerberg, won the right to (alas) be trounced by Durbin in November. If you do not know what I am talking about, do some searches and you will figure it out.

Macy's continues its consolidation of regional chains by closing old HQs (including the old Dayton's/Marshall Field's head office in Minneapolis) and consolidating them into smaller regional offices. The good news is that Chicago gets one of these offices. Sorry, I'm still not shopping at their stores. Although she bought some Frangos for Christmas, I was happy to have talked the Boss into buying an expensive St. John Knits coat at Neiman Marcus (where it was about $600 cheaper -- go figure) instead.


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