Although it’s probably obvious to readers of this blog that the economy is going to become a bigger and bigger issue as the election approaches, campaign strategies often are not as responsive to changes on the ground as one might imagine. Perhaps the most stunning example was a comment in the Financial Times on Friday […]
Read more...A story in the UK’s Times give a recap of the gloomy forecasts for the US and world economy, including a particularly cheery prediction by a SocGen strategies that foresees that the Dow will drop to 4500 and the S&P 500 to 500. Not included in this forecast is a grim warning from Barclays and […]
Read more...Passports for penguins PhysOrg Saudi Nukes Skeptical CPA Ben Stein Goes Wild at the NYT!!!!!!!!!!! Dean Baker Amerikaanse ’meltdown’ reden geldinjectie Fortis De Financiele Telegraaaf or a brief summary in English, Fortis predicts US financial meltdown within weeks (hat tip reader Saboor). Update: full translation courtesy an anonymous reader. Manners matter – especially for powerful […]
Read more...In yet another example of synchronicity, Jim Hamilton provides a chart from Peter Hooper that illustrates why the housing market is in the doldrums: securitized credit has all but vanished. This topic came up in the previous post as a explanation of why the real estate market is coming to look like a war zone. […]
Read more...Tom Lindmark sent me a link to a post on his blog, a write-up of the main things he learned at the IMN Distressed Real Estate Conference in Las Vegas. Remember, this event is for those in the industry who LIKE messy, ugly situations. But it gives the impression that the industry is close to […]
Read more...Perhaps it’s merely the result of drafting in a bit more haste than usual, but the latest offering by Nouriel Roubini, “The delusional complacency that the “worst is behind us” is rapidly melting away…and the risk of another run against systemically important broker dealers,” is unusually heated in tone, to the point where it distracts […]
Read more...Treasury chief on ‘wombat leave’ BBC North Pole May Be Ice Free for First Time This Summer National Geographic. I’m going on a family trip to Alaska in August, and expect to be thoroughly depressed by the signs of global warming. Iran: The Threat Thomas Powers, New York Review of Books. A must read. Rogers […]
Read more...Why has taken it taken so long for Congress to try to rein in a Treasury, Fed, and now SEC that has roughshod over their prerogatives? And even odder, why do they send a shot across their bow now that the Fed and SEC are starting to work together on securities reform ideas (or more […]
Read more...Alert readers pointed us to new sightings of heightened credit market worries from Barclays via the Telegraph and Bill Fleckenstein via Calculated Risk. What distinguishes them from normal patter about the debt markets is the urgency of their alarms (hat tip Dwight and doc) The irony here is that the Fed, as Tim Duy points […]
Read more...Daniel Dicker, a former oil trader writing at TheStreet.com, contends that there is a way to test the hypothesis that speculation is influencing oil prices (a view that Dicker supports). Exchanges could impost a “liquidiation only” requirement, which was last used to break the Hunt brothers’ attempted corner of the silver market in the early […]
Read more...Yesterday, the two big bond insurers got what they wanted, but the victory now looks Pyrrhic. MBIA and Ambac both asked rating agency Fitch to stop issuing ratings after the rating agency was the first of the major scorekeepers to downgrade them below AAA. Fitch has decided to withdrew ratings, since the monolines are denying […]
Read more...Even though the Fed has cut short term rates, those in the real estate business know too well that mortgage rates are rising. What is worse, an article in Bloomberg suggests that despite price declines, housing has become less affordable. In other words, even with the drop in purchase prices, the monthly cost of mortgage […]
Read more...Der Spiegel, in “The Shrinking Influence of the US Federal Reserve,” (hat tip reader Saboor) discusses how the US is submitting to a detailed, comprehensive investigation of it financial system under the Financial Sector Assessment Program. While Der Spiegel claims that this program is a humiliation to the US, the real significance may be that […]
Read more...The Financial Times reports on a new, troubling credit crunch phenomenon. Companies carrying a lot of LBO-related borrowings walk a tightrope since the high debt burden gives them little room for error. But in this downturn features an unanticipated rises in raw materials, plus in some cases, cuts in credit facilities that were important buffers. […]
Read more...I had grumbled recently that the financial press had not paid any attention to the simply stunning rise in China’s foreign exchange reserves, which were estimated to have increased by $75 billion in April alone. Brad Setser and Michael Pettis have been reporting regularly on this beat, but it has gone undernoticed in the wider […]
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