Around January 2007, I received a job offer from AIG Risk Management. I did not take the offer for various reasons, one being that I was still under a consulting contract with my employer at the time, but I vividly recall the meeting with Chief...
Following a recent New York Times story in which R&R Consulting's Sylvain Raynes criticized Goldman's CDO arrangements on mortgage-backed securities, McClatchy Newspapers have published their own expose on the details of one revealing Goldman deal. Commenting on this transaction, Raynes says it was tainted by...
R&R Consulting's Sylvain Raynes comments on the "cynical" use of credit information by Goldman Sachs in "Banks Bundled Bad Debt, Bet Against It and Won," by Gretchen Morgenson and Louise Story in The New York Times, December 24, 2009. Sylvain Raynes joins Louise Story for a...
2009 is nearly over, and not a moment too soon. After exhaustive studies, scientists have firmly concluded that 2009 is the crappiest year in living memory. Undoubtedly it is the lousiest year of the 21st Century. It is barely equaled by 1914, 1918 and 1929...
As far as Hollywood is concerned, the red menace is back. Last week, the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation released its report on the impact of low-rent DVDs through the Redbox system, and guess what – Redbox will result in the complete end of...
Like any sane person, I hate to keep beating a dead horse. So why does Pamela McClintock at Variety keep propping up the same smoldering corpse. OK, it seems to be her job to keep insisting that Hollywood is having a swell year despite all...
A common diagnosis of the housing debacle is that lenders lacked "skin in the game," and so made loans without regard to risk. A proposed overhaul of financial regulation being debated in Congress would require securitizers of mortgages to keep, at minimum, between 5% and...
In a recent interview, Clint Eastwood referred to the current generation of young Americans as a pack of teenage twits. That may or may not be a fair opinion. Clint may simply be cranky. However, Eastwood just summed up the audience that Hollywood is...
Like the old story about the reports of Mark Twain's "death," current news stories on the end of independent movies may be slightly exaggerated. Granted, it doesn't look good and the damage has been absolutely gawd-awful, but indie film is not exactly dead, no matter...
There's good news and bad news. The bad news is that 2012 scored over $225 millions across the globe for a blow-out opening that will convince the nitwits that run Hollywood that they are making money. Of course the movie's planet-destroying budget of $260 to...