Lark Williams

Stimulus Tracker: Results Are Scary

Keep the border with Mexico open! Where else will Americans get jobs??

Macro: How Bankrupt Financials Will Impact Connecticut, NJ [Housing Tracker]

The biggest loser will be NYC apartment prices. Already there are reports of apartments selling for less than their purchase price. This will only get worse. What propped up the $1,200/sq.ft cost was lots of high paying jobs and foreign investors, with liquidity and high-value currencies. All those are gone -- pay is down, jobs are out, world-wide recession. Watch out below. This will be another famous NYC 30%-40% contraction

Could Lehman's Failure Cause a Systemic Meltdown?

Why is Einhorn the problem??? I guess all lie detectors are evil and should be trashed as well. Each time he's raised a problem with fraud, he's been right. The man is a hero. He didn't create the toxic sludge and he did not pay himself handsomely for years out of imaginary earnings. He saved people like me who took his warnings seriously and got out.

Let's burn books while we're at it. Darn those inconvenient truths

Sears Faces Risk If Economy Doesn't Improve

Mr. Rong needs to better back up his assertions but he's directionally accurate. SHLD has negative free cash flow from operating activities, which is the best measure of the health of the enterprise. <$517MM> reported for 13 weeks. Mind you stores of course do their best Q4 but nonetheless this is a lousy number to post, and we're in the teeth of a tough retail environment. The strong get stronger and the weak get weaker in the shakeouts.

Walk into a Sears. Awful -- the stores look like a third world retailer. Their best hope is to license their brands like Craftsman, Die Hard etc. As a retail operator, they are only going down.

For latest cash flow statement see yahoo.brand.edgar-onli...

Citi's Old Lane Fiasco: A Perfect Illustration of Everything That's Gone Wrong

Curses on directors who don't seem to appreciate that running large and complex organizations require a little something called operating experience. More often than not these virgin CEOs do exactly what you'd expect, awkward and less than satisfying initial experiences. When will their be BoD reform so that shareholders can get meaningful competence and commensurate compensation plans?

Then again, or presidential candidates, as CEOs of the country, haven't run anything either. So the nation as a whole seems place little value on experience. I wish I could say we get what we pay for