True to form, the White House set forth a sketchy program to limit the proprietary trading activities of banks, and it is a vote for the status quo which is being tarted up as something else. I’m amazed that someone of Volcker’s stature is allowing himself to serve as the branding for ideas that are […]
Read more...The New York Times describes today (hat tip reader Peter A) how more and more Senators are voicing public opposition to a confirmation of a second term for Bernanke: The confirmation of Ben S. Bernanke to a second four-year term as chairman of the Federal Reserve ran into further trouble on Friday as two more […]
Read more...By Thomas Adams, an attorney and former monoline executive, and Yves Smith In September 2008, the Federal Reserve bailed out AIG, and ever since then, controversy has swirled around the motivation and terms of the bailout. A major part of the bailout funds went directly to three banks: Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and the French […]
Read more...By Thomas Adams, an attorney and former monoline executive, and Yves Smith Our accompanying post at Naked Capitalism describes, at a high level of abstraction, a data compilation and analysis that shows that a substantial majority of the transactions in Maiden Lane III are in the public domain. These transactions have long been a focus […]
Read more...Bloomberg reports that Obama will announce provisions to limit the proprietary trading activities of banks. This all sounds well and good, in fact, I’ve advocated prohibiting prop trading (you’d need pretty active monitoring of overnight positions to make sure it has not simply been moved back to order flow desks). It is not a socially […]
Read more...Gee, Warren Buffett happens to own a chunk of Wells Fargo, and also provided an equity injection to Goldman Sachs. So it should come as no surprise that he has come out in a Bloomberg interview arguing against the so-called TARP fee, a charge to be levied against the non-deposit liabilities of large banks. Now […]
Read more...By Marshall Auerback, a fund manager and investment strategist who writes for New Deal 2.0. The post-mortems following the Massachusetts Senate by-election are coming in fast and furiously, but by far the most instructive remarks come from the President himself. He clearly doesn’t get it. A majority of Obama voters who switched to Brown said […]
Read more...By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns CNBC’s Diana Olick has the breaking story on alleged fraud in the mortgage industry. She has been writing about this for a few days now. See Big Banks Accused of Short Sale Fraud – Realty Check with Diana Olick at CNBC’s website. Basically, second liens on properties like home […]
Read more...Time Magazine still gets first prize for shameless pandering to the interests of the elites (in my childhood, it was called the Establishment) with its designation of Bernanke as “Person of the Year” and the fawning accompanying story. But the FT has a piece tonight that is almost as bad, because unlike Time, the FT […]
Read more...The seemingly-certain loss of a Democratic Senate in Massachusetts today, that formerly held by Ted Kennedy, and with it, a filibuster-proof majority, is purported by Politico to be rousing Obama to a new “combative” stance. But combative is so far from what helped Obama get where he is that his reflexes will be, as they […]
Read more...The brazenness of the financial services industry knows no bounds. The latest sighting comes in the form of a leak (or a plant? of the fact that Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association which is considering mounting a constitutional challenge to the proposed TARP fee of 15 basis points of uninsured liabilities announced last week. […]
Read more...I’m normally loath to largely lift another post, but Adam Levitin at Credit Slips raises an interesting and potentially important question, and if I put it in Links, it would probably get less attention. His argument is effectively the routes that allowed banks to evade state usury laws (a Supreme Court decision plus adept jurisdiction-shopping) […]
Read more...Yves here. Several readers wrote, appalled by a Time Magazine article defending Timothy Geithner. Marshall Auerback took it upon himself to examine the quality of its reasoning. By Marshall Auerback, a fund manager and investment strategist who writes for New Deal 2.0. It was only a matter of time before someone emerged to defend Tim […]
Read more...Before you dismiss the headline as nutty, at least one respected macroeconomist and former central banker, and now chief economist of Citigroup is of the view that England is at risk of a currency crisis. He noted last November: With the pound sterling dropping like a stone against most other currencies and credit default swap […]
Read more...Today, Obama said to the banking industry, “We want our money back and we’re going to get it.” Has he forgotten that possession is nine-tenths of the law? While Uncle Sam is normally able to defeat such long odds, all bets are off with our “Speak moderately and carry no stick” President. The fact that […]
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