It’s official: Moue is no more. Blame it on the economy, folks. Thank you to the wonderful staff, our loyal readers, and the stray people who ended up disappointed when a search for “amputee porn” brought them here.

Good night and good luck.

Bob Harmon, my grandfather, was a newspaper man. He was hired in 1954 to serve as a sportswriter for The Advertiser-Tribune, a small newspaper serving Tiffin, Ohio. In 1976, he moved on to other projects- he coached baseball, worked as a salesman and, later in life, discovered a remarkable talent for painting- but the journalism experience stuck with him. Twenty years later, he returned to The Advertiser to write a lifestyle column that would make him a local celebrity. These columns always ended with his trademark phrase: “At least, that’s the view from here”.

Zach Carter has an article up at The American Prospect detailing how the ratings agencies stand to benefit from the Term Asset-Backed Securities Lending Facility (TALF). TALF is the Fed program announced last winter (but just getting into action) that puts forth $1 trillion in non-recourse loans to holders of AAA rated asset backed securities (the “assets” here being a wide variety of new loans). The problem Carter highlights comes with that “AAA rated” part.

This is a chart of the CDS spread from yesterday, courtesy of Baseline Scenario, and it paints a less rosy picture of Citgroup than the company’s memo (and Wall Street’s reaction). Credit default swaps (CDS) are essentially insurance policies issued against bonds (or bond-like investments) that allow the investor to put most of the risk in the hands of others for a fee. They have serious drawbacks (see: AIG, near collapse of) but have historically served as indicators as which direction things are heading.There are those who think that the market is so broken at this point that CDS spreads don’t offer reliable readings but there are others who think they’re still worth a glance.

It is impossible to name one culprit behind the current economic crisis because there were so many correlated pieces that went into this disastrous puzzle. But collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) -specifically, those of asset-backed securities (ABS)-were, continuing the puzzle metaphor, a large corner piece.

Originally published: Aug. 11, 2008
If it hasn’t already been made abundantly clear to you which side of the Russian-Georgian conflict the American media is supposed to be on, the Wall Street Journal has an opinion piece by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili entitled “The War in Georgia is a War for the West“. I’ll summarize the article for you: “I underestimated how much Russia would overreact to my country’s attempts to forcibly reclaim South Ossetia with poorly trained troops. And I thought you guys in the West would have my back. …

Carbon offsets offer a chance to feel better about ourselves, but how much to they help the environment? In practice, there are significant problems in which projects they support, and how they affect our long-term environmental policies.

It was brought to my attention earlier in the evening that TMZ had posted a post-assault picture of Rhianna that was taken (presumably by the police) shortly after she was assaulted by her boyfriend, Chris Brown. I thought it was disgusting but expect nothing less of TMZ.

The Geithner authorized bank Stress Tests are the economic equivalent of a high school football coach padding the grades of his players so that they can all play in the next big game. Unfortunately for the team, a few of the players have died. But that doesn’t stop Coach from dressing them in uniform and propping their bodies up on the bench next to the Gatorade cooler.

Dina Goldstein’s photo project “Fallen Princesses” was inspired by the Disney Princess obsession the artist saw in her young daughter and her friends. Goldstein decided to take the characters back to their more Grimm roots by setting the cheerfully garbed characters in darker modern scenarios. Snow White (above) has children and a lazy Prince Charming. Cinderella is drinking alone in a bar. Belle from Beauty and the Beast is undergoing plastic surgery. Rapunzel is undergoing chemo. Sleeping Beauty is in a retirement home with her prince. Jasmine from Aladdin is involved in Middle Eastern warfare.