Word: pointings
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...Microsoft has reached the point where it is very much like Wal-Mart (WMT) and McDonald's (MCD). Neither of those companies is growing rapidly, but both dominate their industries, throw off huge amounts of cash each year, and have balance sheets that are the envy of most other large multinational companies...
...case in point is the conversation that Ken Lewis, CEO of Bank of America (BAC), says that he had with former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. According to information released by NY State Attorney General and governor-in-waiting Andrew Cuomo, Lewis was threatened by Paulson who told him that the entire B of A board would be dumped if the bank backed out of a deal to buy Merrill Lynch. Passing the blame, Paulson claimed he was merely doing the dirty work of Fed chief Ben Bernanke. Bernanke has tried to distance himself from the event. The press has used...
Interbank lending - another gauge of credit conditions - is often captured by the TED spread, which measures the premium banks pay over government bonds when they borrow money from one another. The difference is now just about 1 percentage point - what it was before Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection last September...
That's nothing like the quarter-to-half-point premium banks had gotten used to in the early 2000s, but it's still well down from 1.4 percentage points at the beginning of the year. Not to mention the 4.6-point gap it hit in the worst of the market freakout last fall...
...This is not to say we should be crass Keynesians. Crises often spur efficiency reviews that help organizations in the long run by improving performance. Ultimately, the point is that we should not consider the endowment a fixed and static managed investment. Rather, it is a self-regenerating pool of funds that is directly impacted by the result of our community achievements. More and happier students will donate more in the future, as happened when Harvard weathered the 1930s Depression. Allston will bring better research, attract better faculty, and bring more prestige to the university. Housing renovations will improve student...