May 22, 2008 in economizing, naming, politicizing
Tags: blogs, crisis, crunch, diplo, finance, jarry, lordon, monde, phynance, quants, ubu
Quants think that the word “phynance” refers to a sophisticated mixtures of rocket sciences and financial devices (“physics” + “finance”). But in his blog “La pompe à phynance” (in French), economist Frédéric Lordon aptly explains that, in reality, this is a genuinely ubuesque concept.
May 19, 2008 in capitalizing, pricing
Tags: alstom, areva, atomic, bouygues, canard, economics, fillon, france, french, merger, nuclear, politics, power, privatization, sarkozy, valuation
In last week’s issue of Le Canard Enchaîné (muckraking) there is an interesting update about Sarkozy’s plans to sell Areva, the gem of national radiation, to his best friend Martin Bouygues (for an earlier report see also “French Radiance Selling Itself”). The idea is to merge it with Alstom through a holding company in which [...]
May 14, 2008 in capitalizing, counting, economizing, performing
Tags: banking, banks, capitalism, cdo, cdos, credit, crisis, crunch, debt, derivatives, finance, insurance, liquidity, lrb, mackenzie, money, mortgage, portfolio, rating, securities, sociology, subprime
This recent LRB piece by Donald MacKenzie is really worthwhile reading. Apart from providing a nicely pedagogical explanation of what credit derivatives and asset-backed securities do, it exposes some most curious features of contemporary financial capitalism: it’s about how serious financiers might be about the end of finance.
May 5, 2008 in printing
Tags: cosmopolitics, cosmopolitiques, culture, ecology, education, exception, exceptionalism, france, french, history, instruction, laicism, nation, political, politics, republic, science, state
Exceptionalism may apply to all sorts of countries. But, in France, it is a French specialty. French-reading readers, though, might want to have a look at the last issue on “The French Exception” of the very fine journal (this is a plug) Cosmopolitiques. The presentation of the issue (and more) is available here.
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