Author Archives: Yves Smith
Misguided Corker-Warner “Kill Fannie and Freddie” Bill Relies on Private Market Sparkle Ponies
Let’s be clear: I’m not a fan of Fannie and Freddie. Subsidizing housing finance is a lousy way to subsidize housing. But the Corker-Warner bill is no solution.
Read more...South Africans Plan to Protest Obama’s Crimes Against Africa During Presidential Visit
An Obama tour of Africa is likely to provide a marker of he is perceived in the rest of the world, although any negative reports are unlikely to get much play in our lapdog media. But since Obama was shunned in the recent G-8 conference, it’s going to be interesting to see how his African hosts muster up the appearance of enthusiasm during his visit.
Read more...Administration, Congress Trying to Give Gensler the Brooksley Born Treatment over Derivatives Reform
It’s actually getting amusing to watch the banking industry try to pull out heavy but rusty artillery and aim at a regulator who looks like he is about to *gasp* make them comply with some rules they were certain they’d be able to evade.
Read more...US: Desperately Seeking Income
By Leith van Onselen, Chief Economist of Macro Investor, Australia’s independent investment newsletter covering trades, stocks, property and yield. You can follow him on Twitter at @leithvo. Cross posted from MacroBusiness
Westpac Institutional Bank yesterday released a sobering note (below) on the ongoing income squeeze taking place in the US.
Read more...Links 6/26/12
Regulatory Looting, Promontory-Style: Botched Foreclosure Reviews Alone Generate More than Double Goldman’s Revenues per Employee
t’s really hard to convey a sense of how utterly grotesque the looting that Promontory Financial Group conducted on the misnamed Independent Foreclosure Reviews.
Read more...Corruption, EuroStyle: ECB Chief Draghi Fudged Italy’s Books to Secure Eurozone Entry, Italy Stuck With Derivative Losses
As readers of the financial press may recall, there was a kerfluffle over the fact that Greece had used a currency trades designed by Goldman in 2001 to mask the level of its indebtedness and secure Eurozone entry. A much bigger and more costly shoe of the same type has dropped in Italy and it directly implicates the current ECB chief, Mario Draghi.
Read more...Links 6/25/13
Mortgage Rate Shock Likely to Dent the Housing Market
As regular readers know, your humble blogger, along with a lot of investors, was taken by surprise when the typically dovish Bernanke not only started using the taper word a month ago, but then made the demise of Fed heroics sound even more imminent by talking about higher unemployment “thresholds,” namely 7%, than had been voiced previously. And the reading of Fedwatchers like Tim Duy and (even before the FOMC statement) James Aitken is that the central bank wants out of the QE business sooner rather than later.
The impact on mortgage rates already looks very likely to throw a big bowl of cold water on the housing party.
Read more...Danny Schechter: Mandela and Snowden – Two Heroes With More In Common Than We Know
Clearly the stories of Nelson Mandela and Edward Snowden are very different, but there are some parallels that almost no one in the media is willing to acknowledge.
Read more...Lee Adler: The Big Four Central Banks Muddy The Same Sea Of Liquidity, And Then There’s China
The world’s major central banks are now working at cross purposes, creating massive crosscurrents that are making life extremely difficult for investors. This isn’t likely to end soon. In fact, conditions should get worse.
Read more...Gensler Staring Down Administration and Banks on Derivatives Reform
Yves here. Readers may recall that Gary Gensler, the head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, is being pushed out by Obama. His planned replacement is so appallingly lightweight (oh, and formerly in a very junior role at Goldman) as to assure that all she’ll be able to do is take dictation from financial firm lobbyists.
But Gensler may be having a last laugh before he leaves office.
Read more...Links 6/24/13
The BIS Loses Its Mind, Advocates Kicking Citizens and the Bond Markets Even Harder
If anyone doubted that Ben Benanke’s “we’re convinced the economy is getting better, so take your lumps” press conference after the FOMC statement last week was awfully reminiscent of 1937, the newly-released Bank of International Settlements annual report is tantamount to a kick to the groin. And to change metaphors, if the Fed’s sudden hawkish posture is playing Russian roulette with the real economy, the BIS just voted loudly for putting a couple more bullets in the cylinder.
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