naked capitalism

vlade says:

Unrelated, but anyways:
If you don’t have anything to read over the holidays, go and buy John Kennet’s Galbraith’s “The Great Crash 1929″. Whole chapters could have just “stock” replaced with “houses” or “ABSes” and have exactly the same validity. Even the equivalent of Madoff (Krueger and others) can be found. As he writes “One of the uses of depression is the exposure of what auditors fail to find”.

Anonymous says:

a, quoting bloomie: “From Bloomberg: “U.S. Banks May Turn to Asian Bond Investors to Plug Funding Gap.” In the story we read, “U.S. financial institutions sold more than $100 billion of government-backed notes in dollars, euros and British pounds since Oct. 14…”

That is interesting. Previously, the US banks mostly only borrowed in Yen by issuing so-called samurai bonds to take advantage of ZIRP, or by financing foreign operations with debt denominated in the local currency (or hedged into that currency). For example, Goldman Sachs issued ¥148.5 billion of samurai bonds in January 2008, and Citi issued ¥186.5 billion in samurai bonds in June 2008, after issuing ¥270 billion of samurai bonds in June of 2007. GE, JPM, and AFC all issued large quantities of samurai bonds.

If these banks are borrowing in non-USD denominated curencies to finance US operations, that is very interesting. Why should the US taxpayer take on this kind of currency risk?

Woland says:

Re: the Harvard endowment

Am I the only one who finds it amusing that, for many
who live in “gated communities” they now find that
their money also lives in a parallel universe, the only
difference being that wheras in the former, the gates
are to keep people out, in the latter the gatekeeper’s job is to keep the money in.

SalvatoreM says:

Yves,
Thank you for all the info you have provided for the past year.

Please have a very merry holiday.

ruetheday says:

AIG to buy $16 billion in CDOs to avoid having to pay on CDS contracts it wrote.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081224/aig_cdo.html

Have they ever purchased hurricane damaged houses to avoid having to pay on homeowners policies?

alexblack says:

To doc holliday: Good to see you back here and posting. The outflow of your negative entropy is always a delight (especially when it’s in Russian).

To Yves: Season’s Greetings and warm thanks for running such an insightful blog. You should mention the name of your favorite charity – I’d be happy to put them in my will, which will be more flush due to profits I’ve made from what I’ve learned from you and the sharp cookies who are drawn here and post.

To all others, scattered around cyberspace, thanks for your virtual company and conversation – have a wonderful holiday, whichever one you may celebrate (aside to the Pagans – Happy Belated Solstice!)

Anonymous says:

An enjoyable Holiday to all, may you feast, laugh with your belly and cherish each other.

Skippy

Uncle Chilly says:

Yves, Doc, and Commentariat,
Merry Festivus!

NFL says:

It’s be the most heartfelt gift I’d receive this year, Glen, but I’m spending this Christmas with friends in Midtown. I always wondered how you folks got in the mood this time of year, and if it’s Aussie Santettes in furry red bikinis and plenty of beer, count me in for ‘09. Happy Holidays to you and all our other naked friends. You bring understanding, meaning, and entertainment to what would otherwise be some truly selfish and soulless times.

Anonymous says:

В области математики, интегралом неотрицательной функции можно рассматривать в простейшем случае, как район между график этой функции, и X-оси. Лебегу интеграции является математической конструкцией, что расширяет неотъемлемой частью более широкого класса функций, но и расширяет домены, на которых эти функции могут быть определены. Он уже давно понял, что для неотрицательных функций с гладкой достаточно графике (например, непрерывных функций на замкнутых ограниченных интервалов) площадь под кривой можно определить как составной и с использованием методов приближения регионе полигоны.