By Thomas Adams, at Paykin Krieg and Adams, LLP, and a former managing director at Ambac and FGIC. In my view, Goldman, and a host of other clever bankers, are deliberately obscuring one of the most important points about modeling, CDOs and sophisticated investors. One of their defenses against the tremendous losses these products delivered […]
Read more...By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. I hope this is a good subject to discuss in light of the recent Obama Administration machinations regarding Fannie and Freddie, Big Pharma, and Healthcare. Before the Christmas break, I wrote a post to tie together my thoughts on why I have found the Obama economic program so unsatisfying […]
Read more...By Bruce Krasting, a former foreign exchange and derivatives trader and hedge fund manager. I was disappointed with the Christmas Eve ditties from Treasury and FHFA re: the Agencies. To be honest, I was appalled. The two releases contained significant information. The timing was obviously an attempt to slip in some bad news while everyone […]
Read more...The Treasury Department, as reported by Bloomberg, and commented on by Rolfe Winkler and Huffington Post (among others) noted, considerably increased its Freddie and Fannie safety net, by removing all limits on the amounts on offer (an increase from a ceiling of $400 billion) and simultaneously allowing the two GSEs to increase their balance sheets […]
Read more...By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. I wrote this in September 2008, re-posted it at Credit Writedowns in March and am re-posting it here because of Yves’ last post. Ifelt that Fannie and Freddie would be used to buy up mortgages, effectively nationalizing the U.S. Mortgage problem (see my last paragraphs). I had seen this […]
Read more...Yves here. This is a cross post from Jane Hamsher at FireDogLake. The fact that Jane and Grover Norquist are on the same page is noteworthy. More important, they call for an investigation (hear, hear!) and below the text of a letter to the Attorney General, provide a link to a petition. If you agree, […]
Read more...Gretchen Morgenson and Louise Story have a good article up at the New York Times on synthetic CDOs (or more accurately, synthetic ABS CDOs, for “asset backed securities” CDOs). The press is finally starting to turn some lights onto one of the activities that played an important role in the crisis, but has not gotten […]
Read more...Both Obama and the Treasury Department keep talking up the TARP as if it is a money maker for taxpayers, when nothing could be further from the truth. Obama tried this stunt in his anniversary of Lehman speech, and the Treasury continues with the theme, of implying that results for the firms that paid back […]
Read more...By Thomas Adams, at Paykin Krieg and Adams, LLP, and a former managing director at Ambac and FGIC. Readers may have noticed Janet Tavakoli’s recent article at Huffington Post on Goldman Sachs and AIG. While much of it covers territory that Yves and I already wrote about previously, Ms. Tavakoli stops short of telling the […]
Read more...By Richard Smith, who works for the London consultancy Cubematch, which specialises in risk, collateral and change management The OK The BIS analysis of the 2007-09 banking crisis floats my boat. Here is their headline list of causes: excessive on- and off-balance sheet leverage, diminutive and low quality capital bases, insufficient liquidity buffers at banks. […]
Read more...By Richard Smith, a capital markets and IT consultant There was some really strange stuff going on last week. First, Citi got in a right old tangle. Monday: Citi announce share sale. Pretext: TARP escape. Wednesday: the share sale falls through. Wednesday: it also emerges that the IRS has been quite kind (or at least […]
Read more...By Satyajit Das, a risk consultant and author of Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke’s War on the Great Panic by David Wessel Too Big To Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and […]
Read more...An intriguing piece is up at the Washington Post, “Fed’s approach to regulation left banks exposed to crisis,” not simply because it does a good job of finding and analyzing some case studies of the Federal Reserve’s failures at a bank regulator, but also because in the critical opening paragraphs, it launches a full bore […]
Read more...With Obama’s popularity ratings plunging, one would think an obvious step would be for the Administration to move forward with measures that have good PR value and carry little political and budget risk. Yet, as Marshall Auerback noted, the Obama Administration is increasingly all hat, no cattle, making lofty popular sounding promises and not following […]
Read more...So we now have an official demonstration of what we all knew to be true: banksters giving their right to loot their companies top priority, and the greater fool public be damned, with Goldman the most egregious sinner. That firm’s self serving protestations to the contrary, it was a ward of the state, and would […]
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