Category Archives: Banking industry

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.

Administration Keeps Pretending Mortgage Servicing Has Been Fixed, Whistleblowers Say Otherwise

It sometimes feels like a Sisyphean task to keep discussing how Americans were thrown under the bus in the various mortgage settlements reached in 2011 and 2012. Needless to say, whistleblowers continue to come forward and describe widespread abuse even though the officialdom would have you believe otherwise.

Yanis Varoufakis: The Death of Direct Bank Re-capitalisation: Europe’s (Newest) Day of Shame

The idea was to de-couple the banking from the debt crisis. The reality is that they propose to do nothing of the sort. And deposits are now officially at risk.

The Taper is Too Sharp

Yves here. I have to say I’m still gobsmacked by the Fed’s belief that the labor markets are showing meaningful improvement, and the further “clarification” that this means the central bank thinks it’s on track to start easing up on bond buying this year.

New York’s Benjamin Lawsky Collects Scalps, Showing Regulators Can Gasp Regulate

New York’s Superintendent of Financial Services, Benjamin Lawsky, has taken scored some significant wins from what would normally be a pretty disadvantaged spot.

Coming to a Broke Municipality Near You: The Greek, Um, Jefferson County, Solution

Jefferson County’s sewer system train wreck is now looking an awful lot like the periphery country in Europe mess.

Is the Fed Going to Dial Down Its QE Taper Talk?

We’ve suggested that the Fed has drunken a bit too much of its own confidence Kool-Aid to be talking about tapering QE. The problem now, as we’ve stressed, is that the effect of QE may prove to be asymmetrical.

Obama Axes Bank-Harrassing Gary Gensler at CFTC, Plans to Install Lightweight Ex-Goldmanite

Obama is no longer bothering to pretend that he is anything other than a stooge for banks and other big money interests.

Mary Jo White Institutionalizes Deutsche Bank Protection Racket at the SEC

The Financial Times has caught a significant revolving door that its business press peers have largely overlooked.

Mortgage Delinquencies Down….But a Record 843 Days to Foreclose

Yves here. While most investors and analysts were busy fixating on the Fed’s taper and the unemployment report and the Abenomics roller coaster, some important housing market news slipped under the radar.

Sheila Bair: Everything the IMF Wanted to Know About Financial Regulation and Wasn’t Afraid to Ask

Does anybody have a clear vision of the desirable financial system of the future?

Mr. Market’s Temper Tantrum Over Fed Tapering Talk

Lordie, the market upset we’ve had over the past week plus over Bernanke using the T, as in “tapering” word, is escalating into a full-blown hissy fit. We now have the Wall Street Journal and other finance-oriented venues telling us how unbelievably important today’s job report is. Huh? One jobs report is just another in a long series of data points.

So why has this one been assigned earth-shaking importance?

Quelle Surprise! US and UK to File Criminal Charges Against Small Fry for Barclay’s Libor Abuses

Now before anyone gets excited about the specter of bankers doing a perp walk, the early word in a Wall Street Journal story on criminal charges being readied against former Barclays bankers says that the prosecutions will target “midlevel traders.” This exercise thus continues the established pattern of small fry serving as human shields for managers and executives.

Mortgage Rate Increases Starting to Bite

Bloomberg reports that that staple of mortgage funding, the 30 year fixed rate mortgage, has seen its interest rate increase from 3.48% a month ago to 4.16% as of yesterday. By contrast, the highest rate the 30 year mortgage reached in the previous year as of mid-March had been 3.85%.

One analyst, Mark Hanson, sees evidence that the dropoff in refinancings has been impressive

Dan Kervick: Do Banks Create Money from Thin Air?

Yves here. This post by Kervick is LONG, but that’s because he unpacks the “creation” of money in a step-by-step manner. Your patience will be rewarded.