Free Republic

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- A combination of Citigroup Inc.'s (C) and Morgan Stanley's (MS) brokerage operations would create the country's largest broker. But while the deal may improve Citi's capital ratios, some observers fear the boost would not solve Citi's capital issues. For Morgan Stanley, which presumably would become the majority owner of the entity created with Smith Barney, the deal would put the company in a better position to take advantage of potential disruptions created by rival Bank Of America's (BAC) integration last week of Merrill Lynch & Co. Yet even the consideration of separating from its Smith Barney...

A little fact is a dangerous thing Since I'm talking on Saturday at BloggerCon about blogs and journalism, I've been thinking about what seems to me to be the central issue in this field: trust. Here is a semi-formed essay -- consider it a sort of notes-in-progress. Three weeks ago, reading a New York Times "Political Memo" piece (9/7/03) by Adam Nagourney, my eyes scanned the following sentence: "Perpetuating a widely circulated myth, a senior adviser to a Dean rival recently sent an e-mail message saying, 'You do know that he is the Dean of Dean Witter, don't you?' He...