Yearly Archives: 2009

Freudian Slip at the Financial Times?

Get a load of this (the subheadline):

Links 2/18/08

Indian charmers want their snakes BBC Croc that took boy to go to zoo Sydney Morning Herald Major cache of fossils unearthed in L.A. Los Angeles Times Stimulus Big Winner: Battery Manufacturing MIT Technology Review. Egad, I did a study on advanced batteries back in 1993 and got to drive a US manufactured electric car. […]

Martin Wolf: Rethinking the Lessons of Japan’s Debt Unwind

Ah, today the Financial Times reminds me of the way it was back in early 2007, when it was clearly heads and shoulders above any US paper. Wonder why I have fewer days like that, It isn’t improved reporting by the US media (although they are further down the curve). I suspect that the FT […]

Greenspan Predicts TARP Will Prove Insufficient, Supports Bank Nationalization

Before readers start throwing brickbats at the mention of the name of Alan Greenspan, it’s important to remember that he has become the poster boy of the policy errors that lead to our financial mess. And that isn’t an accurate picture. This crisis had many parents, and even though Greenspan was one of the key […]

Black Hole Alert: GM, Chrysler Seeking More Federal Support

As the economy weakens, big ticket items like cars are particularly hard hit. And GM’s offer of 0% financing, which lead to a brief flurry of buying, apparently wasn’t enough to offset the trend of broad-based consumer retrenchment. There is a bit of disparity in reporting. The Wall Street Journal tells us GM now says […]

Links 2/17/09

Dance duet helps male birds mate BBC Drug Erases Fearful Memories MIT Technology Review A ‘fraud’ bigger than Madoff Independent (hat tip reader Michael) Recap: The Stimulus Bill and the Macro Impact Menzie Chinn, Econbrowser RED ALERT: FX Dislocation In Process Market Ticker (hat tip reader dzzle) He is right, the currency moves this evening […]

William Black: "There Are No Real Stress Tests Going On"

By way of background, William Black is a former senior bank regulator, best known for his thwarted but later vindicated efforts to prosecute S&L crisis fraudster Charles Keating. He is currently an Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. More germane for the purpose of this post, Black […]

So Much For Stimulus: Chinese Loans Diverted to Stocks, Feeding Rally

The China bulls have commented approvingly on the growth in loans in China, seeing it as a sign of pending recovery, along with an upswing in stock prices. We’ve pointed out that economist and China commentator Michael Pettis has heard quite a few reports that many of these loans were in fact sham transactions to […]

Dizard: Financial Industry Reform is in Limbo

One of our beefs has been the lack of any progress, even interesting trial balloons, on the financial firm reform front. And that’s a serious problem. Economists like to point to the Great Depression as the textbook example that fiscal stimulus works. FDR launches a bunch of spending plans, and voila, by 1936, the economy […]

Banks Tightening Screws Further on Hedge Funds

Those on the hedge fund beat may recall how themasters of the universe have in most cases suffered a reversal of fortune. 2008 was a bad year for most strategies, and the perterbations of September and October made matters worse. Sudden plunges in markets lead to margin calls, and the funds would sell whatever seemed […]

Collateralized Loan Obligations: Another Time Bomb?

Just when you thought most of the bad news was out in the open, another ugly problem raises its head. Remember collateralized loan obligations? They last got press because investment banks were stuck with a whole bunch of them as unsold inventory, and their erosion in value was wreaking havoc on investment bank balance sheets. […]

Links 2/16/09

A Comeback for Lamarckian Evolution? MIT Technology Review Figures reveal Blair’s charity empire Guardian. Reader Tim is not impressed, calling them, “two scam artists of the first order”. Tariff Protests in Eastern Port Rattle Kremlin New York Times. We linked to an article on this two weeks ago. Where has the Times been? Did regulators […]

Companies Paring Exposures to Risky Counterparts

As much as some optimists would like to find evidence of recovery, it is far more likely that the US will see a further deterioration in economic activity. We have not yet seen much in the way of bankrupticies and debt restructuring. Until this sort of thing becomes sadly routine, the bottom is not yet […]

Geithner and Summers Consolidating Power (Auto Bailout Edition)

It looks like Tim Geithner and Larry Summers are executing a land grab. From the New York Times: President Obama has dropped the idea of appointing a single, powerful “car czar” to oversee the revamping of General Motors and Chrysler and will instead keep the politically delicate task in the hands of his most senior […]