New Name Floated In Geithner Replacement Talks Dealbreaker (What up, bankster? I said I wouldn’t be using that word but it’s in context and I had to say it. This will be the new Treasury lyrical theme – just replace the word gangsta with the other one.) America’s Next President? YouTube (Oops. wrong link at […]
Read more...By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns This comes via the FT: Saudi Arabia on Wednesday decided to drop the widely used West Texas Intermediate oil contract as the benchmark for pricing its oil, dealing a serious blow to the New York Mercantile Exchange. The decision by the world’s biggest oil exporter could encourage other producers […]
Read more...By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns Yves is going to be in a light posting mode, so I will be posting some links and a few posts for your reading pleasure. The first one is an update to some thoughts that Yves had on GMAC on the 27th. By the way, where is Jesse? I […]
Read more...Your humble blogger is WAAAY behind the eight ball! Apologies! Some of you sent very nice links and some good research too, and I am sorry I am not able to take advantage of them. I am very much under the gun till next Wed, I am afraid my posts will be thin. Please bear […]
Read more...By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. On September 25th, I wrote: Paul Volcker and senior Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron both testified to Congress this week that the government is trying to make bailouts for the giant banks permanent. Writing Wednesday in The Hill, Congressman Brad Sherman pointed out that : In my opinion, Geithner’s proposal […]
Read more...By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. DoctoRx, Rob Parenteau and Marshall Auerback have each written articles here to bring clarity to some issues I first raised at the beginning of the month in my post, “The recession is over but the depression has just begun.” As I see it, the issue we are debating has […]
Read more...Australia coastal living at risk BBC (hat tip reader John D) Antipsychotic Drugs in Kids Linked to Weight Gain Bloomberg These comments from DoctoRx: These drugs are wildly overprescribed because Obama’s new friends push and then push some more to get MDs to prescribe probably the single most overpriced class of drugs on the entire […]
Read more...By Marshall Auerback, an investment strategist and analyst who writes for New Deal 2.0. A major shortcoming in an otherwise thoughtful post by DoctoRX on deficit spending is a traditional mistake in which analysts seek to analogise the expenditures of government with that of a private household or business. The government is sovereign. This fact […]
Read more...We’ve been waiting for vigilante justice to start against those who profited from the financial crisis, but it should have occurred to us that it would be the foot soldiers, not the kingpins, who’d be the prime targets. From Reuters (hat tip reader John D): As Los Angeles housing advocates launched a campaign warning of […]
Read more...The numbers aren’t as impressive as AIG’s but the general premise is the same. The automaker’s financial service arm it asking for a third taxpayer-provided cash transfusion. Might help if someone stanched the bleeding first. But no, bleeding is part of the game plan. The reason for more dough to GMAC is so GM and […]
Read more...By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. I have repeatedly pointed out that big banks are not more efficient than smaller banks. For example, I previously noted that an article in Fortune concluded: The largest banks often don’t show the greatest efficiency. This now seems unsurprising given the deep problems that the biggest institutions have faced […]
Read more...Wow, I should not be surprised, but this is a stunner nevertheless. It had generally been assumed that the AIG payouts of 100% on credit swaps (when the insurer was under water and bankrupt companies do not satisfy their obligations in full) was the result of some gap in oversight plus traders at AIG exercising […]
Read more...Sorry for few posts of my own, a terrible deadline week and I am behind right now to boot. But I am very pleased with the quality of guest posts and hope you enjoy them. Butterfly’s Wing Ears May Detect Birds LiveScience (hat tip reader John D) Chinese railways and speculating pig farmers Michael Pettis […]
Read more...By Marshall Auerback, an investment strategist and analyst who writes for New Deal 2.0. How appropriate that with Halloween just around the corner, the Fed and Treasury have announced a coordinated effort that will put the central bank at the forefront of pay regulation on the zombie firms now kept alive courtesy of US government […]
Read more...By Richard Alford, a former economist at the New York Fed. Since them, he has worked in the financial industry as a trading floor economist and strategist on both the sell side and the buy side. It has been frequently charged that the Fed, under Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, kept interest rates too low […]
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