April 10, 2009 at 11:12 am
School of Management executive-in-residence Mark T. Williams, a former Federal Reserve bank examiner, says the Fed should be sharing more details with the public about the “stress-testing” being conducted on the nation’s 19 largest financial institutions.
“It is understandable that the Fed needs to protect the confidential nature of test results. But how the tests are constructed and run should not be off limits.
“Having such basic information could help to restore trust in our banks, especially if the public is aware that such tests are grounded in conservative risk-management principles. Currently the public has only been given a narrow-view window into assumptions used.”
Contact Mark T. Williams, 617-358-2789, williams@bu.edu
April 9, 2009 at 5:01 pm
School of Management Professor Scott Stewart, an investment-management expert and former Fidelity funds manager, says the possibility of small investors being allowed to get in with the big hedge funds in investing in the banking bailout might be a disaster, but could work.
"To provide access to the little guy, you'd want a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) format. This requires providing liquidity. Another approach would be offering a new closed-end fund, which doesn't provide daily liquidity, or an ETF, which traditionally offers in-kind liquidity but couldn't in this case.
"But with a mutual fund, even if half are in liquid investments, there's the risk that many people will want out, but can't get out. This is typically associated with a significant drop in value. And this could be a public relations disaster in the making."
Contact Scott Stewart, 617-353-2353, sstewart@bu.edu
April 8, 2009 at 11:41 am
Mass Communication Professor T. Barton Carter, an FCC expert, reflects on the commission's long-awaited start today on a national broadband plan aimed at ensuring all consumers have access to fast and affordable services.
"Universal broadband has been a major goal of the Obama administration from the beginning. It is viewed as essential in today's society as phone service was in the last half of the 20th Century. However, it will be much harder to achieve in the U.S. than in some other countries due to the larger geographic area and lower population density that exists here."
Contact T. Barton Carter, 617-353-3482, comlaw@bu.edu
April 8, 2009 at 9:10 am
World-renowned sports psychologist and full-time professor in Boston University’s School of Education Dr. Len Zaichkowsky offers advice to the BU Hockey team as they prepare for the Frozen Four:
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April 7, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Law Professor Linda McClain, an authority on family law and policy, says Vermont's legislature legalizing gay marriage marks an erosion of political resistance to same-sex unions - at least in that state.
"One objection to the Massachusetts high court's approach of ruling that the constitutional remedy for excluding gay men and lesbians from marriage was that it was anti-democratic. By contrast the Vermont high court let the legislature choose the remedy.
"Now, the Vermont legislative branch has enacted a law extending marriage to same-sex couples. Whatever political resistance to doing so at the outset, when Baker v. State was decided, has eroded to the point where lawmakers, by a veto-proof majority, support opening up civil marriage itself.
"This development may also support the views of persons who said that civil unions (legal in Vermont since 2000) were a necessary step toward full marriage equality, allowing people to 'get used to' same-sex couples having a status like marriage, but not called marriage."
Contact Linda McClain, 617-358-4635, lmcclain@bu.edu
April 7, 2009 at 12:06 pm
College of Communication Dean Tom Fiedler, a Pulitizer winner and former executive editor of the Miami Herald, says the threat by the Associated Press to take on Web aggregators who distribute news stories without paying for them is misguided.
"I think the AP and its newspaper members have more to lose than to gain from this threat. Journalists typically are thrilled - as they should be - when their stories are picked up by Google because it brings readers that otherwise wouldn't be there. Have no doubt that readers are lifeblood to journalists, not the incidental advertising dollars that might stay in Google's hands.
"The notion that Google is stealing content from newspapers and profiting from that theft is misguided. The fact that a reader who clicks on a headline link in Google News goes immediately to the host's paper's site underminds the 'theft' argument.
"In fact, if any organization should be charged with stealing content from newspapers it should be the AP, whose staffers rewrite newspaper stories thousands of times every day, often with the barest of credit going to the originating reporter or newspaper."
Contact Tom Fiedler, 617-353-3488, tfiedler@bu.edu
April 7, 2009 at 8:00 am
The Boston University Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center presents renowned Dylan expert Christopher Ricks. He will discuss race and its relations to the art of Bob Dylan in his lecture "All Because of the Color of his Skin." The lecture will take place on Tuesday, April 7 at 7:00 PM in Metcalf Hall, which is located on the 2nd Floor of the GSU, 775 Commonwealth Ave., Boston. EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
April 6, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Journalism Department Chairman Lou Ureneck, a former deputy editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, says it's about time the Associated Press and its member papers took on the Web aggregators that use articles without legal permission.
"This is long overdue. The newspapers seem to be taking their cue from book publishers, who recently settled with Google."
Contact Lou Ureneck, 617-353-4095, lureneck@bu.edu
April 6, 2009 at 4:36 pm
School of Management Professor N. "Venkat" Venkatraman, chairman of the Information Systems Department, says the breakdown of the merger talks between IBM and Sun Microsystems is bad news for Sun.
"I am wondering if HP or Dell may get into the fray now that IBM seems to be walking away. Both could benefit from having Sun as part of its portfolio. Or will it be a case, like Yahoo, with the board appointing a new team to develop an alternate course of action?
"It is clear that Sun is too small to be a dominant force in the transformations under way. I thought that the IBM-Sun combination was a good one for both players and IBM's premium was attractive to Sun. But clearly, there are hidden details and contractual conditions that have forced IBM to take a step back.
"The breakdown is more of a problem for Sun than for IBM now."
Contact N. "Venkat" Venkatraman, 617-353-7117, venkat@bu.edu
April 6, 2009 at 1:07 pm
School of Law Professor Cornelius Hurley, director of the Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law and former counsel to the Fed Board of Governors, says CEOs of TARP-assisted banks must start clearing their toxic assets or get out.
"Asked (Sunday) whether the government would force banks to sell their toxic assets and begin lending again, Treasury Secretary Geithner was noncommital. CEOs of TARP banks need to be instructed by their regulators that if they do not participate in the balance sheet-clearing program they will be treated the same as GM CEO Waggoner.
"In anticipation of the toxic asset sales: (1) banks need to begin the process of adjusting the value of their loans and investments to reflect marketplace reality; and (2) regulators (FDIC, FED, and OCC) must signal their intention to enforce the Prompt Corrective Action provisions of the law."
Contact Cornelius Hurley, 617-353-5427, ckhurley@bu.edu
