By Delusional Economics, who is horrified at the state of economic commentary in Australia and is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness.
There is definitely something odd happening in Europe. I can’t quite put my finger on it, so I thought I would list out my musings on the topic and see what I can come up with.
Read more...The Eurozone debt crisis has frayed a lot of nerves, particularly among Greek politicians, whose country is on the verge of bankruptcy, and German politicians, who no longer trust Greek politicians—they’d willfully misrepresented deficits and debt in order to accede to the Eurozone and had continued to do so up to insolvency. But now a far bigger confrontation at the very core of the Eurozone is visible on the horizon. And it may bring epic changes.
Read more...The whole purpose of a settlement is that a party pays damages to rid themselves of liability, and the amount they pay (and “pay” can include the cost of reforming their conduct) is less than what they expect to suffer if they were sued and lost the case (otherwise, it would make more sense for them to fight).
But in the topsy-turvy world of cream for the banks, crumbs for the rest of us, we have, in the words of Scott Simon, head of the mortgage business at bond fund manager Pimco, in an interview with MoneyNews, lots of victims paying for banks’ misdeeds:
Read more...Although we’ve featured quite a few news reports on the impact of austerity in Greece, this report from Dimitri Lascaris, a lawyer with family in Greece, via Real News Network, gives a flavor of how conditions have deteriorated, even in small towns where social ties are presumably tighter than in Athens.
Read more...One of our big beefs about the pending mortgage settlement has been the failure of prosecutors and regulators to do anything remotely resembling serious investigations. You don’t settle on known, easy to prove abuses (particularly when you choose not to know their extent) and leave yourself with a grab bag of mainly more difficult to ferret out ones to consider going after later.
We’ve seen repeatedly that small scale investigations in the servicing and foreclosure arena have found widespread problems. So the latest report from San Francisco county should come as no surprise.
Read more...If you are going to lie, it appears the Obama Administration believes there is nothing to be lost by telling a Big Lie.
Read more...By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist based in Dublin, Ireland
More pension funds are getting their act together and calling the British government on their dodgy pseudo-stimulative policies. The British pension provider Saga has released an excellent counterargument to the recent round of QE announced by Bank of England governor, Mervyn King (an argument that we have been pushing for some time).
Saga are seething and you would guess that pension recipients are no less enraged because the effects that QE is having on pension funds appears to be quite devastating.
Read more...Yves here. No one should be surprised that Bloomberg is reporting today that Goldman is aggressively lobbying for a Volcker Rule waiver for its role as a sponsor of and investors in “credit funds.”
By George Bailey, who has worked in senior compliance roles at a Big Firm You’ve Heard Of and is also a member of Occupy the SEC
Today is “Volcker Day” and Paul Volcker was on a tear.
Read more...Former banking regulator and white color criminologist Bill Black gives an unvarnished view of the behavior of Apple and other technology companies in dealing with suppliers in China. He does not buy the idea that the US is powerless to do anything about work condition in China and provides some concrete suggestions.
Read more...North Carolina has posted an executive summary of the foreclosure settlement (hat tip Abigail Field), and it is a a troubling document. The first aspect is the very fact that an executive summary, rather than actual text of an agreement, is what is being released. And it’s not being released for the worst of reasons: the deal has not been finalized. We explained in an earlier post why this is completely outside the pale, and we’ll turn the mike over to Frederick Leatherman for a recap:
Read more...Dave Dayen pointed out how peculiar that the mortgage settlement propaganda website, www.nationalmortgagesettlement.com, is a .com and not a .gov. And it turns out the Department of Justice disavows its content (hat tip April Charney):
Read more...By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist and hedge fund manager
Pick your poison. In the words of Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, the choice facing Greece today in the wake of its deal with the so-called “Troika” (the ECB, IMF, and EU) is “to choose between difficult decisions and decisions even more difficult. We unfortunately have to choose between sacrifice and even greater sacrifices in incomparably more dearly.” Of course, Venizelos implied that failure to accept the latest offer by the Troika is the lesser of two sacrifices. And the markets appeared to agree, selling off on news that the deal struck between the two parties was coming unstuck after weeks of building up expectations of an imminent conclusion.
In our view, the market’s judgment is wrong: an outright default might ultimately prove the better tonic for both Greece and the euro zone.
Read more...You know it’s bad when banks are the most truthful guys in the room.
Read more...Check here to find your local station and broadcast time. Hope you can tune in!
Read more...Hope you don’t mind the spate of posts with my various media appearances on the mortgage settlement. This was my first time on Democracy Now and they do do their homework. A producer ran out to me when I was on deck to ask if the total deal was $25 or $26 billion. I said all the Administration messaging was $26 billion, but the numbers seemed to add up to more like $25 billion, they must be rounding up on the subtotals. He came back and said they couldn’t make it add up to $26 billion and so would report it as $25 billion.
Here’s the segment:
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