We had read earlier of banks failing to foreclose in Dade and Broward counties because the marker was so glutted with properties for sale that there was simply no point. We heard yesterday of discussion in Cleveland of plowing largely vacant subdivisions back to farmland. A third indicator of the degree of real estate stress: […]
Read more...Gillian Tett of the Financial Times perhaps a bit wistfully, looks back on the days when market participants could tell themselves that everything could bubble along at a “just right” level. She now wonder whether despite the troubling prospects, we might somehow stumble through in a way that avoids the worst extremes (the equity markets […]
Read more...Because I was distracted today (houseguest, plus preparing for out of town trip), I haven’t spent as much time as I would have like on the Congressional hearings into the Bear bailout. Judging from the media reports, it seems that the assertive presentations by the perps, um participants in the deal were not met with […]
Read more...Bloomberg had a odd article on the varying fortunes of Harvard MBAs (and some alumni of other Harvard graduate programs). It duly notes that they range from unquestioned successes like Lou Gerstner to more controversial figures, such as Jeff Skilling, Paul Bilzerian, Henry Paulson,, Stan O’Neal, and of course, George W. Bush Generalizing about HBS […]
Read more...A New York Times/CBS poll found Americans the most dissatisfied they have been about their country’s direction since 1992. And two things are particularly noteworthy about the survey. First is the unhappiness was as universal as you ever see in a large-scale study, cutting across party, gender, age, and geographic lines. The second is that […]
Read more...HRC’s Odd Economics Robert Reich One Ring, to rule them all rdan, Angry Bear Peace is for losers part, 2 John Quiggin Traders Who Sell Short Stocks Are Well-Informed PhysOrg. They’d better be, You can take a beating even if you’ve done your homework. Neuromarketing could make mind reading the ad-man’s ultimate tool Guardian Senate […]
Read more...As the Financial Times points out today, we are witnessing a replay of the pattern seen during Japan’s credit bust, except in reverse. Western banks were leery of extending credit to the Japanese and charged a premium over normal interbank rates. Now that the Japanese credit markets are more liquid than many others, foreign bank […]
Read more...George Soros, in today’s Financial Times, joins a long list of critics of the Paulson financial services reform plan, although even to dignify its bureaucratic legerdemain with the label “reform” is singularly misleading. Soros departs from his peers in sketching out where he thinks regulators went wrong and offers two specific proposals, I am particularly […]
Read more...How dare the CEO of Wal-Mart, the company that makes such a studied practice of paying workers so badly that taxpayers subsidize its prices, say he and big business should influence health care policy? The US has the most costly healthcare in the world while failing to produce materially better results than countries with varying […]
Read more...‘No Sun link’ to climate change BBC Court Approves Review of Countrywide Practices New York Times Feds lie about link between software piracy and terrorism ComputerWorld Some Homeowners Leave Pets Behind in Foreclosure Wall Street Journal. If you can give a home to a mature cat or dog, consider it a small way to help. […]
Read more...Several alert readers caught the Financial Times story, “Wall St banks seek to ring-fence bad assets,” and I held off from posting on the assumption it would merit coverage in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. Not so. The Financial Times article says that investment banks are seeking to put dodgy assets […]
Read more...Louis Uchitelle, in “Unsold Homes Tie Down Would-Be Transplants,” points out that being unable to sell a house can keep people from taking jobs that require them to move. That problem is obviously now more acute given the moribund state of the housing market in many parts of the county. However, Uchitelle implies that the […]
Read more...In an amusing bit of irony, Standard & Poors chief, in an interview, acknowledged that the bond markets are anticipating that corporate defaults will run at twice the rate foreseen by the rating agencies. Recall that roughly half the big business debt outstanding is junk, and nearly all of that was issued in connection with […]
Read more...The 1990-1991 recession hit New York City particularly hard, with deep cuts in Wall Street jobs. The city has become even more dependent on financial services, so a similar or deeper contraction in percentage terms would have an even greater impact. We’re getting a first whiff via the fall-off in apartment closings. One assumption have […]
Read more...On the one hand, I should be flattered that Brad DeLong took the time and trouble to take two posts (here and here) to respond to my comments on an earlier post of his, in which I objected to his and Summers’ notion of having the government fund either directly or indirectly, the purchase of […]
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