When Jim Rogers taught classes at Columbia, he liked to tell students that the US had a proud history of implementing capital controls, and warned them against going on the merry assumption that it would ever and always be easy to make cross-border investments. For instance, taxes on foreign securities transactins are a soft form […]
Read more...When markets were more agitated than they are today, one source of background worry was the Baltics. The countries went on a debt binge, borrowing heavily from Swedish banks. And while the amounts at issue are hardly earth-shaking by credit crisis standards, there is always the possibility that unexpected knock-on effects could lead to more […]
Read more...Wells Fargo is hardly alone in treating credit card customers badly. Whenever I run a post on credit cards, I get a raft of comments and e-mails about various bank misdeeds, which generally involve rate increases when the borrower is current and has not suffered a fall in his credit score. The other common complaint […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns In my last post, I presented you with a bunch of data on debt levels broken down by sector of the economy (see “A brief look at the Asset-Based Economy at economic turns”). I found it interesting that a secular pattern seemed to be at play when looking […]
Read more...Universe Has More Entropy Than Thought ScienceNews SEC Probing Biggest Hospital Company Washington Post U.S. bank M&A slump seen for many more months Reuters Interest sparked in physical commodities Financial Times. Anodyne headline, but serious implications Geithner warns of ‘possible hazards’: report Raw Story (hat tip reader John D) Finding a route to recovery and […]
Read more...The New York Times has a good update on the progress, or more accurately, lack thereof, in the efforts to return to normalcy in the credit markets. The story highlights the fact that the securitization markets, to the extent they are operating, are heavily dependent on government intervention and it does not appear likely that […]
Read more...There has been a peculiar disconnect between the “the crisis is over, on with the recovery” drumbeat of news, and the sobering reality that a good deal of credit bubble overhang still remains to be dealt with. One of the biggest areas is commercial real estate. Various experts, including Apollo Management’s Leon Black warned of […]
Read more...By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. Preface: CDS traders, read the note at the end… Tomorrow, the House Committee on Financial Services will be talking about regulating about over the counter derivatives. Committee Chair Barney Frank has already circulated a draft of the proposed legislation. The star witnesses are Commodities Futures Trading Commission chairman Gary […]
Read more...Hhm, it’s always intriguing when accounts do not line up. This tidbit from a hedge fund reader: From the eagerly-read Andrew Ross Sorkin Vanity Fair excerpt of his book “Too Big to Fail” on the meltdown: Meanwhile, Jon Pruzan, the Morgan Stanley banker who had been assigned to review Wachovia’s $122 billion mortgage portfolio—to crack […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns The following is my translation of a much-discussed article that appeared in Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet at the weekend. This information was being withheld from the public and leaked at an inopportune moment. Note that the Swedish government has secretly been preparing the banks for financial Armageddon, encouraging […]
Read more...Served by Jesse of Le Café Américain The stock market rallied today because of a slightly better than expected ISM Services number. Considering how much ‘stimulus’ the government has given to the FIRE sector it should be doing slightly better than the real economy. Another reason the market rallied in New York today was a […]
Read more...Aquacalypse Now: The End of Fish New Republic. A must read (hat tip reader John D). The top ten things you didn’t know about Iran Juan Cole, Salon (hat tip reader Skippy) 7 Glow-in-the-Dark Mushroom Species Discovered Wired An ACORN Amendment for Pfizer The Nation (hat tip reader John D) New Yorker Rewrites Economic History […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal provides a short update on the weak conditions in the apartment rental market. Vacancies have just hit a 23 year high, and experts expect them to increase. The story, however, is largely silent on the implications for the housing market are concerned. Some have argued that the housing market is stabilizing, […]
Read more...Many US commentators blithely asset that the US does not need to worry about the reserve currency status of the dollar, since there is allegedly no ready substitute. Yet those arguments ignore the fact that there has already been movement away from the greenback. The Globe and Mail in early 2008 noted: A UBS Investment […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. Marshall Auerback sent me a link to a recent Simon Johnson missive about Goldman Sachs. I had already seen and liked this article, but his e-mail prompted me to write this post. My question is: Why is Goldman a bank holding company? Goldman becomes a bank The reason […]
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