Just as one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter, so to is a return to prudent lending practices now leading to “unintended consequences”, namely fewer loans being extended. The post-bubble spin-mongering continues. New lending standards now mandated by Freddie and Fannie as a result of a settlement between New York State and the mortgage giants […]
Read more...What is going on? We noted on June 12 that the World Bank has lowered its growth forecast for 2009 from a negative 1.7% to close to negative 3%. World Bank Group President announced this prior to the G8 meeting and stressed the global contraction would have particularly grim consequences for poor countries. Today we […]
Read more...Submitted by Knute Knutson: As I imagine many of your are, I’m an avid reader of Gillian Tett’s Financial Times columns, I therefore purchased her recent book, Fool’s Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe, shortly after its release. Ms. […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of the site Credit Writedowns. Marc Chandler, Global Head of Currency Strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman has a good piece out today highlighting the differing economic policy agendas of the BRIC group (Brazil, Russia, India and China). In it he suggests CRIBS is a more appropriate moniker for the group as […]
Read more...I am beginning to feel as if I am being gaslighted. For those not familiar with the reference. Gas Light was a 1930s play in which a scheming husband keeps turning the gas lights in his house up and down, then keeps telling his wife that she is crazy when she comments on the changes. […]
Read more...The bits of evidence that provided the strongest support to green shoots backers have been the rise in stock prices and possible signs of slowing in job losses. However, the rally warrants considerable critical scrutiny. First. violent rallies are more characteristic of bear market head fakes than new bull markets. And this rally has featured […]
Read more...The Japanese have a wonderful expression that I will take some liberty in translating. They use it to signify when someone is trying to claim great distinctions among low levels of activity or achievement. The phrase is roughly “A height competition among peanuts.” Reader DoctoRx flagged this Bloomberg report as a Pangloss item. What is […]
Read more...I returned this week from giving a speech in Washington State to a very nice group of economists (the Pacific Northwest Regional Economic Conference, if you must know). I sat in on some of the other presentations. One, on the challenges of measuring inflation, had speakers from the BLS and the BEA. The BLS presentation […]
Read more...Clusterstock has reported that the Telegraph is to restore the article that Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote about one Mark Patterson, a distressed investor who used TARP funding to acquire a bank in Michigan, then said not-so-nice things about the program at a conference in Qatar. He apparently then complained to the Telegraph which yanked the piece […]
Read more...Elizabeth Warren is facing the peculiar experience of being Mr. Smith in Washington. I am a big fan of her position and message, and have come to notice that (not surprisingly) the posture of her interviewer makes a great difference in how well she comes off. Bill Maher pitched a bunch of softballs, and Warren […]
Read more...We asked readers to clue us in to when the media posted stories where the headline spun the underlying report. Remember, many people read only the headline of certain news items, and even if they read the entire article, it might not dispel the impression conveyed by the headline. Sighting of the day, from reader […]
Read more...The Columbia Journalism Review takes apart an interview by Adam Davidson of NPR’s Planet Money, which we linked to earlier this week and caused some consternation among readers who listened to the program. Davidson took a combative stance towards Warren, painted her as out to get the banking industry and out of step with mainstream […]
Read more...The unduly charitable coverage of the stress tests continues. Even though the New York Times does raise a few questions, it still features industry preening and misses some of the important lapses: Industry executives reacted with jubilation, as if they had proved their critics wrong and passed the tests with flying colors. “The results off […]
Read more...I continue to be amazed at the bank cheerleading in the press. Admittedly, article writers are not responsible for headlines, so I do not know who to hold responsible for this New York Times item, “As Stress Tests Are Revealed, Markets Sense a Turning Point.”. How much have bank stocks rallied since March 9? Declaring […]
Read more...History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. But when it’s your farce, sometimes it’s hard to appreciate the humor. We’ve railed about the stress tests since they were announced, but the chicanery, starting with the March 10 Citi and Bank of America pronouncements that they had had a decent […]
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