Strategy Driven

MARCH 6, 2014

This combination of high yield and seemingly low risk sparked a credit boom. “The judge the lawyer the doctor the clergy the widow the trustee of orphans all fell into the common vortex of investing in these bonds,” Life and Fire Insurance Company director Jacob Barker wrote in a letter in 1827.

Insurance 52

Insurance Banking Crisis Discount 52

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 19, 2013

Yesterday, the Federal Reserve announced that it’s kind of sort of about to start ever-so-timidly pulling back on the massive monetary stimulus it’s been pouring out since the financial crisis. You could read this as trying to deflect blame for what transpired later: The crisis happened because we did such a great job!

Bond 8

Bond Policies Long-term Short-term 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 7, 2014

I tried to get Greenspan to talk me for my November HBR article on economics and finance since the crisis , but he said he’d promised his publisher to keep mum until the book was out, which was too late for my purposes. It missed the crisis. The IMF missed the crisis. I finally did pay a visit to his office in D.C.

Long-term 11

Long-term Banking Short-term Finance 11