We have pointed out more than once that a major impediment to reform of the financial services industry is that a small number of firms control infrastructure crucial to modern capitalism: 1. Credit is essential to any society beyond the barter stage 2. Debt markets are now at least as important in providing credit as […]
Read more...Consider: if we are starting to see signs of resistance to austerity measures in the US, it would suggest that they are not going to go over too well in other countries that have debt overhangs either. Defaults and/or restructurings are usually more palatable, politically. And before suggesting that bondholders won’t stand for it, guess […]
Read more...Bloomberg reports that former Treasury Secretary and Citigroup board member Robert Rubin will be summoned before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in April, with Alan Greenspan and Chuck Prince likely to be tapped as well. On the one hand, it’s a welcome sign that the FCIC will be interviewing many of the major figures responsible […]
Read more...Via e-mail: 1. Before Barrack Obama’s next televised speech, prepare your “Bullshit Bingo” card by drawing a square. I find that 5″ x 5″ is a good size — and dividing it into columns –five across and five down. That will give you 25 1-inch blocks. 2. Write one of the following words/phrases in each block: Restored our […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal is not the first to comment on the magnitude of the wagers against the euro (the Financial Times took note nearly two weeks ago: “Speculators raise record bets against euro“). But the Journal offers a spectacle sure to inflame sentiment in Europe: that of major hedge funds feasting first on lemon-roasted […]
Read more...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 […]
Read more...The financial press has for the most part looked at the possibility of sovereign debt crises in Greece, Spain, and Portugal through a deal-making window: will Germany and other EU surplus countries back a rescue package, and if so, with what strings attached? There has certainly been ample speculation, particularly since a bailout of Greece […]
Read more...Martin Wolf, the Financial Times’ highly respected chief economics commentor, weighs in with a pretty pessimistic piece tonight. This makes for a companion to Peter Boone and Simon Johnson’s Doomsday cycle post from yesterday. Let us cut to the chase of Wolf’s argument: Now, after the implosion, we witness the extraordinary rescue efforts. So what […]
Read more...As readers may recall, we had argued over a series of posts that the proposed Volcker rule, to bar proprietary trading at commercial banks, did not go far enough in reducing systemic risk. While the concept was so sketchy that it was difficult to be certain what it meant, it appeared to have two serious […]
Read more...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 […]
Read more...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 […]
Read more...Team Obama’s answer to all negative feedback from the real world is to treat it as a communication/PR problem. Repackage the product, put the “new, improved” message out on all available frequencies, and move on to the next “public is a chump” maneuver. As we noted yesterday, the brand mavens have been assigned to Timothy […]
Read more...By Marshall Auerback, a fund manager and investment strategist and L. Randall Wray, a Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City In recent weeks there has been much discussion about what to do about Greece. These questions become all the more relevant as the country attempts to float a multibillion-euro bond issue later […]
Read more...The evidence just keeps mounting that Team Obama sees its flagging poll ratings and increasing criticism of key incumbents as a mere communications/imaging problem. Its response is just to slap more lipstick on those pigs. Let’s look at a couple of particularly obvious plants. One is from the Washington Post by Dana Milbank, “Why Obama […]
Read more...I’m surprised the little conundrum has not dawned on the officialdom sooner. Any return to safer practices means less leverage and less freely available credit. Less freely available credit, short term and maybe even intermediate term, means less rapid growth (with a binge as big as we had, the drying-out will take time), although it […]
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