Highlights From Last Week’s Reading Around the Web

In his regular Bloomberg column, Michael Lewis analyzes the data dump from the Federal Reserve detailing who got emergency funding at the height of the financial crisis. Although central bank orthodoxy dictates that high-quality collateral should be demanded, it seems that the U.S. Fed lowered its standards considerably. It apparently included “a vault in the Fed basement filled with young women, who claimed, in broken but excited English, they had been repo-ed by the Italian government.”

The Wall Street Journal explains some obscure financial lingo. Always useful for the translator looking to get some of the more dense financial terms explained. My favorite: “Broker: What you'll be, if you follow the advice [of market strategists].”

An interesting Reuters piece by Felix Salmon on the economics of the art market. A whopping 17% of modern art auctions involve Warhol pieces.

Under the category of “S*&%t To Make You Feel Hopeless About the Future,” a New York Times piece analyzing why it makes monetary sense for Rutgers to pay Snooki from Jersey Shore to speak on campus as opposed o paying Nobel laureate Toni Morrison for a lecture.

A really nice blog entry from Seth Godin about where real value lies. Short and sweet (less than 500 words), like all his stuff, but applicable to any industry, including the translation beeswax.


Miguel Llorens is a freelance financial translator based in Madrid who works from Spanish into English. He is specialized in equity research, economics, accounting, and investment strategy. He has worked as a translator for Goldman Sachs, the US Government's Open Source Center and H.B.O. International, as well as many small-and-medium-sized brokerages and asset management companies operating in Spain. To contact him, visit his website and write to the address listed there. Feel free to join his LinkedIn network or to follow him on Twitter.