Category Archives: Federal Reserve

The Empire Continues to Strike Back: Team Obama Propaganda Campaign Reaches Fever Pitch

I’ve seldom seen so much rubbish written by people who ought to know better in a single day. Many critical thinkers have heaped the scorn and incredulity on three articles, one a piece on Rahm Emanuel slotted to run in the Sunday New York Times Magazine, another an artfully packed laudatory piece on Timothy Geithner […]

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Banksters Win Again, Edition 1,477,536

The Financial Times give us yet another sorry update in the bankster vs. the general public saga, and the banksters continue to gain ground. Their latest about-to-be-cinched victory is beating back a pro-reform idea sponsored by Senator Dodd (yes, even he can have the occasional “Nixon Goes to China” moment). Dodd had wanted bank regulation […]

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Das: ‘Swap Tango’: A Derivative Regulation Dance

By Satyajit Das, a risk consultant and author of Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives A question of values… Derivative contracts are valued on a mark-to-market (“MtM”) basis. This requires valuation of the contracts based on the current market price. OTC derivatives trade privately. Market prices for specific […]

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Fed Regional Presidents Conduct Regulatory Land Grab Road Show

The Fed, having performed abysmally in recognizing the growth of a global debt bubble, and then having botched the early-stage reactions (after each of the first three acute phases, it went into Mission Accomplished mode), now is pushing not simply to hold its turf, but expand its sphere of influence. From the New York Times: […]

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Alford: Rethinking Monetary Policy in the Light of Asset Bubbles

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. Low rates have a more powerful effect on driving financial assets than on driving the economy. -Jeremy Grantham, GM0 […]

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So Why Hasn’t the Credit Default Swaps Casino Been Shut Down?

Credit default swaps played a much more central role in the financial crisis than is widely understood, and they continue to get a free pass in financial reform proposals that they do not deserve. As we have discussed on this blog, and recount in more detail in the book ECONNED, central clearing and/or putting them […]

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Is Goldman Finally About to be Leashed and Collared?

Goldman may have made a fatal mistake. Fatal not to the existence of the firm, but to its standing, reputation, legitimacy, and ultimately, to the thing it covets most, its profits. Power is most effective when it is used as sparingly as possible. Niall Ferguson, in book The Cash Nexus, stressed the importance of financing […]

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Auerback: Bernanke Fesses Up: America Has No ‘Insolvency’ Issue

By Marshall Auerback, a fund manager and investment strategist who writes for New Deal 2.0. Usually, we dread the regular Congressional testimonies of the Fed Chairman. They generally constitute a mix of obfuscation on the part of Mr. Bernanke mixed with political grandstanding on the part of Congress. But occasionally, a glimmer of truth comes […]

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Continued Harping on AIG Old News Shows Further Investigation Needed

Sorry for two AIG stories in succession; I just posted the other one when I saw the Bloomberg story just released, “Secret AIG Document Shows Goldman Sachs Minted Most Toxic CDOs.” I’m a bit puzzled as to what the fracas is about here. The formerly redacted Schedule A, the list of the CDOs that the […]

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Quelle Surprise! AIG Hires Additional Lobbyists After It Goes on Taxpayer-Funded Life Support

A very good article in The Nation by Sebastian Jones, “The Media-Lobbying Complex,” (hat tip Tom F) has gone peculiarly unnoticed in the blogosphere, which is a real shame. It does some good, old-fashioned reporting to identify 75 individuals who were regularly presented on TV as experts, and by implication independent, when in fact they […]

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Why is the Administration Tolerating AIG Feather-Bedding and Intransigence?

Why is AIG being permitted to continue to give the finger to the government, and ultimately, the US public that saved its bacon? The sort answer, is that the US government’s need to resort to accounting fictions is being used skillfully against it. The latest AIG stunt is that it is refusing to sell its […]

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Iacono: Is all this “exit strategy” talk warranted?

By Tim Iacono, founder of the investment website Iacono Research and creator of the blog The Mess that Greenspan Made Boy, for a group of policymakers at the nation’s central bank who, in a best case scenario, are going to just sit on their hands for at least the rest of the year, there sure […]

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Alford: My Nominee for Worst Macro Paper, Ever (Courtesy the Fed’s Ministry of Truth)

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. It is award season and I would like to nominate the 13-author “Preventing Deflation: Lessons from Japan’s Experience of […]

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Schwarzman Says Kowtow to Banks or They Will Strangle the Economy

Can someone shut these banking industry narcissists up? The one and only time I met Steve Schwarzman was in 1986, when he and Pete Peterson had just started the Blackstone Group. I was a manager (meaning a mid level working oar) at McKinsey. We had teed up a deal and were assisting our foreign client […]

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Volcker Rule Gives Goldman Easy Choice

The top story at the Financial Times at this hour, “‘Volcker rule’ gives Goldman stark choice,” is a accurate report of Paul Volcker’s latest remarks, but gives a wildly misleading impression of the “choice” facing Goldman: Goldman Sachs and other banks should give up their bank status if they want to avoid the ban on […]

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