The TARP elicited a firestorm of criticism at its inception, and at various points of its short existence, particularly the repeated injections into “too big to fail” Citigroup and Bank of America, plus the charade of Paulson forcing TARP funds onto banks who were eager to take them once the terms were revealed. Now, however, […]
Read more...Submitted by Rolfe Winkler, publisher of OptionARMageddon In an interview with Charlie Rose on Tuesday, Tim Geithner admitted the bubble was caused by Greenspan’s easy money policy. Unfortunately, Charlie didn’t ask the obvious follow-up: “why will this time be different? Why will Bernanke’s easy money policy lead to different results?” Here was the crucial exchange: […]
Read more...Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. Roughly once a quarter, I get together with some leftist professors at Alep restaurant in Montreal. As always, the food was delicious but Tom Naylor forgot to order the lamb dish, one of my favorites. He did make sure the wine kept flowing so I will forgive […]
Read more...Key coral reefs ‘could disappear’ BBC Bandit the wallaroo is proving to be a slippery catch Syracuse Post-Standard South Park on the Economy (hat tip reader John L). SEC Staff to Recommend Civil Charges for Mozilo Wall Street Journal. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Not putting your money where your mouth is Brad Setser […]
Read more...Stanford Law Review has a great interview with Warren Buffett’s longstanding partner, Charlie Munger. Munger offers much less corn pone and more direct opinion than Buffett does. The entire piece is very much worth reading, but I wanted to hone in on some key topics. One is the neglect of the role of what amounts […]
Read more...Reader Harry H tells us that, at least in Vermont, shovel-ready projects aren’t as ready to go as the very nature of the term would suggest. The Wall Street Journal described some reasons for delay back in March: It turns out, though, that shovel-readiness is in the eye of the beholder. Soon after his visit, […]
Read more...Submitted By Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge As we initially reported nearly two months ago, the main reason why the banks’ fixed income trading desks generated phenomenal profitability in January and February had nothing to do with actual trading of fixed income and everything to do with AIG’s hamheaded (and loss-generating) unwind of its CDS […]
Read more...Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (Caisse), through its representatives, provided clarification on its 2008 financial results at the public hearing held today in Québec City by the National Assembly’s Committee on Public Finance: Fernand Perreault, Strategic Adviser to the President, Claude Bergeron, Senior Vice-President, […]
Read more...Huge Bolivian glacier disappears BBC (hat tip reader Steve L) Army Disputes Doctor’s Claim in Study of Injured New York Times Washington Post Defines “Wealthy” as Someone Who Earns $60,000 a Year Beat the Press Goldman Folds in Boston – What Does It Mean? Bruce Krasting 1000 GM Dealerships Forced Out May 15; Executives Dump […]
Read more...Before anyone gets hysterical, the focus of the efforts by Team Obama on financial services industry pay appears to be to force the industry to stop rewarding undue risk taking. As much as I have been critical of many Administration plans, this, at least in concept, is a good one. Why? Because I sincerely doubt […]
Read more...This is too funny to leave to Links. Thanks to reader Doug: You actually need to click here to play the clip. Enjoy!
Read more...Alan Greenspan tells us today that he sees signs of the housing market bottoming. The Financial Times tells us that delinquencies are increasing in prime mortgages, which are even harder to modify than subprime. I am beginning to get tired of the new mortgage lingo, or rather, the slippage of old mortgage lingo. In the […]
Read more...Advante, the 12th biggest credit card issuer, is ceasing all new lending as of June 10. This is yet another example of how the credit contraction is hitting small businesses. Since the credit card industry is highly concentrated, Advanta is pretty small fry, with only $5 billion in outstanding credit. But that was devoted entirely […]
Read more...I am SO sorry this has gone up late! I had it queued up and neglected to post it! Judging Honesty by Words, Not Fidgets New York Times In Attics and Closets, ‘Biohackers’ Discover Their Inner Frankenstein Wall Street Journal Loomis Rent-A-Cops Have Shopper Cuffed, Hauled Away Over ATM Photo Consumerist Financial Psalm 16 Cassandra […]
Read more...Rep. Alan Grayson asks Inspector General Coleman of the Federal Reserve some very basic questions of about various Fed programs and activities and gets nowhere. And the worse is that the IG isn’t stonewalling, but instead is clearly completely clueless. Watching the video, you get the impression that Coleman can’t name a program beyond the […]
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