In another sign that China’s slump is serious enough to evoke crisis responses from the officialdom, banking officials there announced that they were relaxing rules on bank bad debt ratios. The objective is to encourage banks to continue to extend credit to borrowers experiencing short-term difficulties who have viable businesses. The concern, of course, is […]
Read more...The latest edition of Marc Faber’s latest newsletter fell off two separate trucks in my ‘hood, and I thought the most useful bits were Faber’s observations (honed from many years of seeing the world from Asia) that just because a market has gone down a ton doesn’t mean it can’t go down a great deal […]
Read more...Junk bond yields were recently as high as 20% (they’ve improved a bit recently). Some commentators considered the record spreads to be overdone. I don’t have a point of view as to whether a particular junk bond interest level is cheap or dear, but I have commented from time to time that there was good […]
Read more...Ants ‘get aggressive with cheats’ BBC U.S. Rejected Aid for Israeli Raid on Iranian Nuclear Site New York Times. I have said so many bad things about the Bush crowd that I must give Bush credit for a good decision, particularly one I would not have expected him to make. Obama Raises Estimate of Job […]
Read more...Our new hero Elizabeth Warren (we had always liked her posts at Credit Slips, and it’s to see her kicking ass and taking names) pointed to a paper “Bullshit Promises,” by Curtis Bridgeman and Karen Sandrik. It looks at the concept of “bullshit” as defined by philosopher Harry Frankfurt and discusses the implications for contract […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal issued a story that appeared to rely on a single source “a person familiar with the data said” and Bloomberg, apparently unable to corroborate the leak, repeated key bits of the Journal article, with attribution. The highlights: Chinese exports fell an additional 2.8% in December versus the prior December, while imports […]
Read more...In late December, banking regulators agreed to new rules to limit actions by credit card issuers that consumer advocates deemed to be abusive. While the new rules do not take effect until July 2010, regulators claim they will press banks to comply earlier (see here for a summary of the main provisions). Experts argued that […]
Read more...Roland Piquepaille Dies Slashdot In Memoriam for Old Vet Angry Bear Venomous mammal caught on camera BBC There is No Plausible Scenario in Which Social Security Can Not Be Sustained Over the Long Run Dean Baker The Lack of an Empirical Rationale for a Revival of Discretionary Fiscal Policy, John Taylor, AEA (hat tip reader […]
Read more...While it would be easy to dismiss this move by the People’s Bank of China to inch away from dollar based invoicing, the fact is that the use of other currencies for denominating trade transactions has been on the rise. We cited this Globe and Mail story back in February: The chief executive of jewellery […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal tonight says, “Citigroup Takes First Step Toward Breakup.” But what does that mean, exactly? Or had the Journal gone a bit far with the notion that the bank is doing some way, way overdue housecleaning? The eye-popping bit is that the asset dispositions are reportedly at the instigation of the Federal […]
Read more...Rubin’s departure from Citigroup would seem to imply that his continued service there, amid the newly critical commentary on his failure to rein in the bank’s pursuit of risk, was no longer a plus. But the real question is: not a plus for him, or not a plus to the bank? Citi has also decided […]
Read more...Thanks again for your patience, i have a lot of good material (some from helpful readers) I simply have not been able to get to, will be remedying that in the next few days. Please stay tuned! On the verge of a face plant now. Skier Suffers Exposure The Smoking Gun. Reader John sent this […]
Read more...No, the headline above is not goofy, and I presume it did get your attention. In a concise and suitably critical piece, Floyd Norris of the New York Times tells us that the corporate dividends paid in the seemingly good years depended far more on bank largess than was widely realized. And as credit is […]
Read more...While no one hedge fund index is comprehensive. all the reports to date point the same way: the hedge fund industry lost its clients a lot of money in 2008. While you can blame the horrid results on the dreadful environment across a host of asset classes, a very real sense, the funds became victim […]
Read more...Apologies for a post or so less than usual the last couple of days, I came back from holiday to some real messes (literally, as in painters who left a path of destruction in their wake), plus made a couple of trades that I am now kicking myself up one side and down the other […]
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