By Marshall Auerback, a fund manager and investment strategist who writes for New Deal 2.0. Speaking of President Obama, Karl Rove writes, “After a year of living in his fiscal fantasy world, Americans realize they have a record deficit-setting, budget-busting spender on their hands.” Well, given his history with former President Bush, it certainly takes […]
Read more...Are we going to finally start seeing some pointed mainstream media coverage of the Administration’s limp wristed, industry-favoring financial “reform” plans? While it has been woefully slow in coming, the answer appears to be yes. One has to wonder whether the more skeptical coverage follows the increasing evidence that things may not be working out […]
Read more...It would be very hard not to notice, even if one is paying only cursory attention, how oversold the various “reform” programs underway are, and how they would be more accurately called, “Politicians Take Boatloads of Cash From Special Interests While Pretending They Help the Little Guy.” While cynics will argue that out that this […]
Read more...By John Bougearel, author of Riding the Storm Out and Director of Financial and Equity Research for Structural Logic Policymakers managed to extinguish a financial panic in 2008-09 by March 2009. This rescue operation allowed the broad U.S. stock market as measured by the SP500 to rally nearly 70%. Extinguishing the panic was to be […]
Read more...By Bruce Krasting, a former foreign exchange and derivatives trader and hedge fund manager. Mohammad said, “One cannot foretell the future”. I think he was on to something. What looks predictable rarely happens. There are always surprises. I have been tripped up so many times. The following are not predictions of things that will happen. […]
Read more...By Bruce Krasting, a former foreign exchange and derivatives trader and hedge fund manager. I was disappointed with the Christmas Eve ditties from Treasury and FHFA re: the Agencies. To be honest, I was appalled. The two releases contained significant information. The timing was obviously an attempt to slip in some bad news while everyone […]
Read more...I got pushback on a post I put up yesterday critical of the health care reform bill from readers who pointed to the fact that folks like Paul Krugman and Al Franken were supporting it meant it must be at least OK. Well, it isn’t, and don’t delude yourself into thinking that. Why did health […]
Read more...Ah, another Christmas Eve story that (not surprisingly) has gotten little attention. Most of the ire directed against the phony health care reform bill focuses on how it further enriches a fat and undeserving health insurance industry. The media has given less attention to another group that has thrown plenty of lobbying dollars at getting […]
Read more...The Treasury Department, as reported by Bloomberg, and commented on by Rolfe Winkler and Huffington Post (among others) noted, considerably increased its Freddie and Fannie safety net, by removing all limits on the amounts on offer (an increase from a ceiling of $400 billion) and simultaneously allowing the two GSEs to increase their balance sheets […]
Read more...By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. I wrote this in September 2008, re-posted it at Credit Writedowns in March and am re-posting it here because of Yves’ last post. Ifelt that Fannie and Freddie would be used to buy up mortgages, effectively nationalizing the U.S. Mortgage problem (see my last paragraphs). I had seen this […]
Read more...Yves here. This is a cross post from Jane Hamsher at FireDogLake. The fact that Jane and Grover Norquist are on the same page is noteworthy. More important, they call for an investigation (hear, hear!) and below the text of a letter to the Attorney General, provide a link to a petition. If you agree, […]
Read more...By Richard Smith, who works for the London consultancy Cubematch, which specialises in risk, collateral and change management The OK The BIS analysis of the 2007-09 banking crisis floats my boat. Here is their headline list of causes: excessive on- and off-balance sheet leverage, diminutive and low quality capital bases, insufficient liquidity buffers at banks. […]
Read more...An intriguing piece is up at the Washington Post, “Fed’s approach to regulation left banks exposed to crisis,” not simply because it does a good job of finding and analyzing some case studies of the Federal Reserve’s failures at a bank regulator, but also because in the critical opening paragraphs, it launches a full bore […]
Read more...With Obama’s popularity ratings plunging, one would think an obvious step would be for the Administration to move forward with measures that have good PR value and carry little political and budget risk. Yet, as Marshall Auerback noted, the Obama Administration is increasingly all hat, no cattle, making lofty popular sounding promises and not following […]
Read more...Reader Walter passed along this distressing sighting from Chris Floyd’s blog. American civil liberties were gutted last week, and the media failed to take note of it. The development? If the president or one of his subordinates declares someone to be an “enemy combatant” (the 21st century version of “enemy of the state”) he is […]
Read more...