A Bloomberg story today on Neil Barofsky, the head of the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or SIGTARP, contained this explosive little item (hat tip Tom F): The TARP watchdog has also criticized Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner in reports and in congressional testimony for his handling of […]
Read more...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. The Fed believes that it has succeeded in making monetary policy significantly more transparent. Furthermore, the Fed believes that […]
Read more...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. Both fiscal and monetary policymakers have said that they will begin to unwind the stimulative policy stances when the […]
Read more...We know that JPMorgan is not substantially increasing lending anytime soon. And we also know that banks are recapitalizing courtesy of a steep yield curve and near zero rates, what I would call free money. What I didn’t know is how free these funds truly were. An investor friend pointed out something curious buried deep […]
Read more...By Marshall Auerback, a fund manager and investment strategist who writes for New Deal 2.0. Over the last thirty years, we have steadily moved from a bank lending credit system, to one in which capital markets have become the primary form of credit intermediation. Unfortunately, our regulatory apparatus has not kept up. The result has […]
Read more...By Gonzalo Lira, a novelist and filmmaker (and economist) currently living in Chile In 1982, many of the banks hit by the Latin American debt crisis were effectively insolvent. Paul Volcker, as the then-Chairman of the Federal Reserve—charged with overseeing the banking system—effectively cast a blind eye on this banking insolvency. Volcker’s reasoning seems to […]
Read more...A post by Edward Harrison Recently, I wrote a post which examined three different reasons the savings rate in the US could have been falling over the last year. Rebecca Wilder thinks this is a meaningless exercise: Edward Harrison at Credit Writedowns is theorizing why the saving rate is falling when it should be rising, […]
Read more...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. Wide swaths of families, businesses, investors, taxpayers, and others have had not just their net worth but their lives […]
Read more...By Marshall Auerback, a fund manager and investment strategist and Rob Parenteau, CFA, sole proprietor of MacroStrategy Edge, editor of The Richebacher Letter, and a research associate of The Levy Economics Institute Who funds our budget deficit? It is a question taking on increasing significance, given the recent back up on longer-dated bond yields, which […]
Read more...The so-called Valukas report on the Lehman bankruptcy has put a harsh light on the final months of the floundering firm and the regulators who stepped up their oversight, in particular, the New York Fed. Some of the NY Fed’s moves have been so indefensible as to in and of themselves warrant full bore investigation. […]
Read more...An interesting right/left conversation. It’s refreshing to see reasoned discussion across ideological lines.
Read more...So which theory is it: stunning bureaucratic incompetence, wishful thinking and denial (a better gloss on theory #1) or a cover up? Or a combination of the above? No matter which theory or theories you subscribe to, the continuing revelations of how the SEC and perhaps more important, the New York Fed conducted themselves in […]
Read more...The Lehman Examiner’s report gives an unintentionally damning portrayal, both of the the structure of financial regulation in the US and how regulators failed to use the powers they had effectively. Section III.A.6: Government shows that even with its imperfect grasp of the situation, the authorities recognized Lehman had a large negative net worth. Yet […]
Read more...By L. Randall Wray, a Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City who writes at New Economic Perspectives Just when you thought that nothing could stink more than Timothy Geithner’s handling of the AIG bailout, a new report details how Geithner’s New York Fed allowed Lehman Brothers to use an accounting gimmick to […]
Read more...By Tim Duncan, Chairman of American Business Leaders for Financial Reform Financial regulatory reform was starting to feel a lot like a political version of the movie Groundhog Day. Like Bill Murray’s character in the movie – forced inexplicably to live the same day over and over until he learned from his mistakes – the […]
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