Joseph Stiglitz has said that labor should have a voice in the setting of interest rate policy. Is this change at the New York Fed, teh appointment of the AFL-CIO’s Denis Hughes as the replacement to ex Goldman co-chairman Steve Friedman as chairman of the New York Fed, a step in that direction? If it […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. While most economists have come out in favor of Barack Obama’s decision to re-appoint Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Stephen Roach has penned an Op-Ed in today’s Financial Times which highlights the case against Bernanke. It is must reading. Roach has three main points. […]
Read more...Paul Volcker clearly wasn’t kidding when he said the most important banking innovation in the last 30 years was the ATM. Although money market funds go back further than that, to the early 1970s, Tall Paul is not so keen about them either. This isn’t the first time he had gone after money funds, and […]
Read more...Edmund L. Andrews in the New York Times today depicts Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke as badly treated by his critics. The article verges on hagiography: As central bankers and economists from around the world gather on Thursday for the Fed’s annual retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyo., most are likely to welcome Mr. Bernanke as […]
Read more...From Marshall Auerback, an investment management and commentator who writes for New Deal 2.0. No more free passes. A number of the President’s supporters who expressed concerns about the pro-Wall Street tilt of his early administration decisions were prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt so long as he came through on healthcare. […]
Read more...Readers may know that William Black, who teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, has been a vociferous critic of US policy on the financial crisis. In this lecture, he not only revisits one of his favorite topics, fraud, but also examines a wealth transfer from the middle classes to the […]
Read more...I don’t believe in market calls, and trying to time turns is a perilous game. But most savvy people I know have been skeptical of this rally, beyond the initial strong bounce off the bottom. It has not had the characteristics of a bull market. Volumes have been underwhelming, no new leadership group has emerged, […]
Read more...Ooh, this is getting interesting. Sports fans may recall that as of last week, Citigroup was refusing to back down on the issue of the contract for Andrew Hall, the head of commodities trading unit PhiBro, which could be worth as much as $100 million this year. A side comment: Hall seems to be trying […]
Read more...Frank Veneroso was kind enough to write as a result of seeing a guest post “Debtor’s Revolt?” by his colleague Marshall Auerback. Veneroso also provided his latest newsletter and gave us permission to post it. It it pretty long (12 pages), I extracted the executive summary and other key bits. Be sure to read the […]
Read more...Submitted by Marshall Auerback, an investment manager who writes for New Deal 2.0. In “The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics”, Richard C Koo’s account of post-bubble Japan, Koo illustrates that highly indebted corporations with depressed asset holdings and a positive cash flow will embark on sustained debt repayment until their balance sheets are healthy once again. […]
Read more...The 1980s supermodel Linda Evangelista once said. “We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day.” That seems to be the motto of American bankers, (save Citigroup’s Andrew Hall, who needs 40 times that much per business day). Not only do they not care about things banks used to deem as important, like playing […]
Read more...The most interesting aspect of the latest stage of the tempest-in-a-teapot over now famous Phibro trader Andrew Hall’s contract. which could reap him as much as $100 million in 2009, is that Citi appears to be girding itself for a fight with the government over it. This stance suggests several possibilities, which by the way […]
Read more...Well, Ken Rogoff does not do a Shakespearean turn, but he makes a badly needed observation in his latest piece at Project Syndicate, namely, that pinning a lot of blame for the crisis on the Lehman collapse is a faulty analysis. And he picks up a pet theme of ours, that patching up the system […]
Read more...One of the guest bloggers here, the esteemed Ed Harrison, was initially more hopeful about Obama than some of us (I an sufficiently cynical that I find it hard to get excited about any politician, although I will confess to falling for Australia’s Kevin Rudd) but is now calling him a black Herbert Hoover. Even […]
Read more...The SEC desire to self-fund, revealed in an interview of SEC chairman Mary Shaprio in an interview with the Financial Times, is a far bigger deal than it might appear. One of the reasons for the agency’s less than impressive performance in pursuing fraud is that Congress kept it starved. For instance, Arthur Levitt, SEC […]
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