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      Is Lance Armstrong losing his appeal as a corporate pitchman?

      August 21, 2010 /
      Jul 25, 2010 - Paris, France - LANCE ARMSTRONG (USA/ Radioshack) on the podium as team Radioshack accepts the team competition win on the Champs d'elysee.

      Lance Armstrong is one of the most beloved athletes in the United States, and his status as a champion as a cancer survivor has made him the ultimate corporate pitchman. Now, amid a growing story around doping allegations, can Armstrong stay on top? We’ve seen other athletes like LeBron James destroy their brands overnight with their own stupidity, but here events are out of Armstrong’s control.

      I can’t find the link, but the magazine version of BusinessWeek recently ran a short story on how Lance Armstrong’s reputation has been taking a hit recently. Google searches using his name in combination with terms like steroids, drugs, liar, scandal, probe, etc. are growing.

      The media is also starting to turn on him. In a recent blog post, Rich Karlgaard discusses the tragedy of Lance Armstrong and gives a powerful argument on why he know believes that Armstrong cheated.

      Meanwhile, Armstrong has hired a criminal defense lawyer. That can’t be a good sign.

      UPDATE: The New York Times just published a long piece on this subject. One thing I learned there involved the amount of money our U.S. Postal Service paid Armstrong to sponsor his team. Do we really need this government agency sponsoring cycling teams?

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      Mortgage rates keep falling

      August 19, 2010 /

      How low can home mortgage rates go? They keep falling.

      The interest rate for a 30-year mortgage fell for the eighth time in nine weeks, according to a widely watched survey, with the record lows triggering the highest volume of home refinancing in 15 months.

      Freddie Mac’s weekly report on lenders said solid borrowers with 20% down payments or home equity were being offered 30-year fixed-rate loans at an average of 4.42% this week, down from 4.44% a week earlier. The borrowers would have paid 0.6% of the loan amount in upfront lender fees.

      The average 30-year interest rate recorded by the survey has not risen in nine weeks, although it remained flat at 4.57% for the weeks ending July 8 and July 15.

      One reason is the terrible housing market. Homeowner confidence in the real estate market has dipped again.

      Homeowners(i) are more pessimistic about the short-term future of home values in their local market than they have been in the past three quarters, according to the Zillow second quarter Homeowner Confidence Survey(ii). One-third (33 percent) believe home values in their local housing market have not yet reached a bottom, while 38 percent believe they have already reached a bottom.

      Clearly, the foreclosure crisis has a long way to go.

      Economy, Personal Finance, Real Estate

      The battle regarding Elizabeth Warren

      August 16, 2010 /
      WASHINGTON - DECEMBER 10: Panel Chair Elizabeth Warren arrives prior to a hearing before the Congressional Oversight panel, which was created to oversee the expenditure of Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), December 10, 2009 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The hearing was to evaluate whether the TARP helping to improve the nation�s financial situation. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

      Elizabeth Warren has been a hot topic on both Capital Hill and Wall Street, as many are waiting to see whether she will be appointed as the head of the new Consumer Protection Agency.

      The New York Times has written an editorial supporting her nomination. Meanwhile, more Democratic Senators are lining up to support her. Meanwhile, Warren is reaching out to some Republicans and lobbyists.

      Chris Dodd has expressed concern over whether she can be confirmed, but many liberals argue that a fight with Wall Street supporters would help the administration heading into the midterm elections and would help fire up the liberal base.

      We think this is a no-brainer for Obama – appoint her already!

      Finance, General Business

      The President’s economic team

      August 9, 2010 /
      Larry Summers (R), an economic advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama, and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner attend the announcement of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board in the East Room of the White House in Washington, in this February 6, 2009 file photo. Blunt, brash, brainy and occasionally self-mocking. Larry Summers, the White House economic adviser, is all of these things. In a career spanning academia, government and finance, he has rubbed some people the wrong way and infuriated others. To match SPECIAL REPORT - SUMMERS REUTERS/Jim Young/Files (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS HEADSHOT)

      Here’s an excellent article on how the White House economic team is organized. When you read about the President’s economic advisers, this article can help you understand how they all work together. It can also help you understand how different personalities work together, from Christina Romer to Larry Summers to Tim Geithner.

      Thanks to Ezra Klein for the link. Ezra also has a great post on how Larry Summers might now be the ideal candidate to run the National Economic Council, given the nature of his personality.

      Economy, Finance, General Business, Markets

      Boutique investment banking firms are back

      August 8, 2010 /
      WASHINGTON - APRIL 20: U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (L) is introduced by investment banker Roger Altman before speaking at the Mayflower Hotel April 20, 2010 in Washington, DC. Biden delivered remarks to the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project forum on 'From Recession to Recovery to Renewal.' (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

      Wall Street went crazy over the past 15 years, and we had mega-banks gobbling up prominent investment houses, and then making risky trades on their own account with the stockholders, and then the U.S. taxpayers footing the bill.

      Now things are changing, hopefully in a good way.

      It’s been a miserable few years for investment banks. Between epochal meltdowns, shotgun marriages, a federal pay czar, congressional investigations, reform legislation, and SEC lawsuits, even the proudest firms have been flayed (often for good reason). One of the less publicized results of that tumult has been an exodus of talent. But many bankers aren’t fleeing Wall Street — they’re fleeing to the other side of the Street: small boutique firms that eschew the proprietary trading and lending to their clients that the giant banks emphasize. These younger firms hark back to a venerable model of financial firms, selling only advice.

      The biggest and fastest-rising of these outfits is Evercore Partners (EVR), headed by Roger Altman, the ultraconnected former U.S. Treasury official, and Ralph Schlosstein, a superstar who joined the firm last year from BlackRock (BLK, Fortune 500). Evercore shuns risk — no trading for its own account, no lending — and prides itself on avoiding everything that brought the Citigroups (C, Fortune 500) and Goldman Sachses (GS, Fortune 500) to grief. Instead, Evercore’s main service is providing advice to CEOs on mergers and restructurings.

      This is the way it should be.

      Finance, Markets

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