Category Archives: Credit markets

Further Discussion of Maiden Lane III Analysis and Implications

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 […]

So Why is the Fed So Desperate to Keep Maiden Lane III Details Secret?

You will hear much more about this topic (AIG and Fed secrecy) here on Friday, but Bloomberg reports the lengths to which the Fed has gone to try to keep the details of Maiden Lane III, the entity created to buy drecky CDOs from AIG counterparties who received 100% credit default swap payouts. Get a […]

Obama to Propose Rules to Restrict Proprietary Trading

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 […]

Buffett Talks His Book, Voices Opposition to Bank Fee

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 […]

FT As Shameless Fed-Booster, Runs Incredible Claims re Results on AIG Assets

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 […]

Are Securitized Mortgages Subject to Usury Laws?

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) […]

William Black” “Anti-Regulators: The Federal Reserve’s War Against Effective Regulation”

William Black is a former senior bank regulator, now associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC), who writes for New Deal 2.0. The first decade of this century proved how essential effective regulators are to prevent economic catastrophe and epidemics of fraud. The most severe failure was […]

Rob Johnson and Robert Pozen on Too Big to Save

This discussion focuses on the problem presented by too big to fail institutions and suggests remedies. Enjoy!

UK Not Backing Down in Row Over Banker Pay

Bankers ’round the world howled when the UK imposed a one-time 50% bonus supertax. The levy was meant as a shot across the bow, to warn the firms that were posting generous earnings in large measure thanks to government assistance (particularly super low interest rates) to act sensibly. The officialdom’s message was that financial firms […]

Hank Greenberg’s Self-Serving, Largely Off-Base Salvo at Goldman

Wow, has someone declared “Forced Out CEO Tries to Salvage His Reputation Month” when I wasn’t paying attention? Or was I just not on the distribution list? Last week, we had Sandy Weill telling us how the Frankenstein of the Citigroup he created was really a fine business; the only mistake he made was pushing […]

“Fire Geithner Now!”

By L. Randall Wray, Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Research Director with the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability and Senior Research Scholar at The Levy Economics Institute, who writes for New Deal 2.0. There is a growing consensus that it is time for President Obama to fire Treasury Secretary […]

“Tim Out – Sheila and Debt Relief In?”

By Bruce Krasting, a foreign exchange and derivatives veteran who comments regularly on the financial scene. In my piece “What’s in Store for 2010” my number one prediction was: -Tim Geithner will resign as Treasury Secretary. Sheila Bair will replace him. The odds of getting any of these types of predictions correct are probably 20 […]

Hawks at the Fed Warn Re Inflation, Bubbles

Although investors have been worried about the Fed’s exit strategy for some time, you wouldn’t see much evidence if you looked at the markets. While gold prices are an exception, the stock market appears to reflect optimism about recovery (although cynics would say it really is a function of liquidity, not fundamental views). Either premature […]

Guest Post: Recent Lehman MD Reviews “The Murder of Lehman Brothers”

By Arthur Doyle, a former managing director of Lehman Brothers who now manages a hedge fund. I didn’t come to Joseph Tibman’s The Murder of Lehman Brothers expecting a blow-by-blow insider’s account of the financial meltdown of 2008. That ground has been covered adequately by, among others, Andrew Ross Sorkin in Too Big To Fail. […]

“The Once and Future Fed Policy Error?”

By Richard Alford, a former economist at the New York Fed. Since then, he has worked in the financial industry as a trading floor economist and strategist on both the sell side and the buy side. Monetary policy is center stage as the Fed pursues highly accommodative policies in order to generate a recovery and […]