Yearly Archives: 2009

Denninger Savages WaPo Defense of Goldman

It simply amazes me that those who are cheerleading the seeming return of Wall Street to health overlook the extensive, hydra-headed subsidies they’ve received and continue to receive. The media has bought and is touting the line, “Hey, they (more accurately some) paid back the TARP, so what’s the beef?” Let us consider the other […]

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Links 7/20/09

San Diego menaced by jumbo squid BBC Forget the Trash Bag, Bring a Towel New York Times. Dumpster diving takes on a completely new meaning. Impact mark on Jupiter, 19th July 2009 Anthony Wesley. Something may have hit Jupiter! Does This Mean We Will Be Getting a Pepper Spray Fee? Bob Lawless, Credit Slips Ketchup […]

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Quelle Surprise! The Fed is Reporting Losses on Its Bear Stearns and AIG SPVs

Readers may recall that during the heat of bailout battle, the Federal Reserve got into the fancy finance business, relying on the sort of deal structuring sometimes used to try to turn toxic odd pork scraps into barely-digestible sausage, the procedure used for pigs so dead that merely putting lipstick on them just won’t do. […]

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CIT Makes Tentative Deal With Bondholders to Avert Bankruptcy

CIT appears to have reached an out-of-court restructuring, which includes having current bondholders provide financing. From Reuters: CIT Group Inc has reached a tentative deal with a bondholder group for $3 billion in rescue financing, which the lender hopes will help it avoid bankruptcy,… The bondholder group, which includes Pacific Investment Management Company (Pimco) and […]

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Guest Post: Review of Ferdinand Pecora’s "Wall Street Under Oath"

Submitted by DoctoRx, who comments on the economic and financial scene at EconBlog Review. In a few months during what was likely the worst financial crisis of the Great Depression- the tumultuous events of early 1933 culminating in closure of all banks in most states and then FDR’s sweeping bank “holiday”, a man who had […]

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LInks 7/19/09

Brazil demands return of UK waste BBC Were we smarter 100 years ago..? The Public Domain TARP watchdog says Treasury lacking bank data The Hill and TARP Inspector Urges Treasury to Track Banks’ Aid More Closely Bloomberg (hat tip reader Barbara). As much as I am sympathetic with what the COP is doing, I am […]

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Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Says End of the Financial World is Nigh

One of the good things about those of the Austrian persuasion is that they serve to protect the flanks of the merely skeptical like me. I am not exactly keen Ambrose Evan-Pritchard’s prescription, which is greater monetary easing with more fiscal restraint. I put banking industry reform (of the root and branch sort) very high […]

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Links 7/18/09

Oldest WWI veteran dies aged 113 BBC Artistic tendencies linked to ‘schizophrenia gene‘ New Scientist. Um, this is news? Low-wage capitalism : colossus with feet of clay– what the new globalized, high-tech imperialism means for the class struggle in the U.S. Fred Goldstein (hat tip reader John D). This actually looked quite interesting (I only […]

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On the Unwillingness of Economists to Recant, Even in the Face of Evidence

From a newly minted PhD, via e-mail: I ran into another Harvard student who recently had a chat with a senior economics faculty member who is telling students the following anecdote. Apparently the professor is involved in some way with the American Economics Review. The AER has a backlog of two to three years between […]

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CNBC denies culpability in Roubini as bull saga

Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. I just read a CNBC story which fails to mention CNBC’s involvement in the apparently erroneous report that Nouriel Roubini has suddenly become more bullish. Is this omission justified?  The controversy centers on statements Roubini made regarding the timing of a technical recovery in the United States.  Yesterday, […]

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Links 7/17/09

Huge blob of Arctic goo floats past Slope communities Anhcorage Daily News In Push for Cancer Screening, Limited Benefits New York Times. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. For instance, the US is the only advanced economy in which it is considered good medical practice to have everyone at age 50 get a […]

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Satyajit Das Weighs in on OTC Derivatives Proposals and Finds Them Wanting

For those who have not come across him, Satyajit Das is a hard core derivatives expert, having worked with them in enough markets and enough vantage points to very well versed, which in his case means thoroughly jaded. His book for laypeople, Traders, Guns, and Money. manages to be very informative, somewhat geeky, yet engrossing […]

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Guest Post: Pledging Commercial Real Estate as Pension Contributions?

Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. From CalPERS’ lawsuit against credit agencies, we go to another more interesting lawsuit. The WSJ reports that Delphi retirees are suing over a plan to end pensions: A group of retirees of Delphi Corp. (DPHIQ) filed suit Thursday, saying it needs an independent administrator to help stop […]

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