So much for merely making reassuring noises, as the Wall Street Journal reported an hour or so ago. Unless the authorities can call in favors and get a strong show of buyer interest at the Fannie sale of $3 billion sale of short-term debt tomorrow, it’s hard to imagine the markets will take well to […]
Read more...Willem Buiter has a characteristically colorful post, “Time for comrade Paulson to pull the plug on the Fannie and Freddie charade” on the prospect of a Fannie and Freddie rescue. Why is it the British can fulminate better than we Americans do? But Buiter’s beef isn’t the operation of the GSEs but the philosophy behind […]
Read more...Nouriel Roubini has consistently been accurate in predicting the course of our snowballing credit crisis, and has also made some important intellectual contributions to the discussion. such as how the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system has lessons for the future of our Bretton Woods 2 currency program. But in my view, Roubini’s post today […]
Read more...Henry Kaufman, aka Dr. Doom for his prominence and prescience in reading the bond markets during the painful early 1980s credit crunch, said not surprisingly that the Federal government needed to assist Fannie and Freddie. Unfortunately, the more important part of Kaufman’s message is likely to be ignored. The former Salomon Brothers chief economist also […]
Read more...There is a very good op-ed at the Wall Street Journal today by Adam Levitin, who we have often quoted at the blog Credit Slips. It offers a clear explanation of why the Dodd-Frank housing bill won’t accomplish much in the way of borrower relief. Many of our readers will regard that as a good […]
Read more...Oh dear. This move comes after oil was starting to retreat a tad and Iranian president Ahmadinejad (a figurehead, but one who gets treated seriously by the Western media) was sounding sensible and willing to negotiate. From Reuters: Iran has test fired nine long- and medium-range missiles, including one which it has previously said could […]
Read more...Credit card companies, once having had Washington in the palm of its hand, is now facing a backlash as “gotcha” fees combined with a lot of Americans paying credit card rates that a generation ago would have landed the lender in jail (no joke, on an NPR show that I participated in, a caller said […]
Read more...The Guardian has a leaked copy of a World Bank study that finds biofuels to be the biggest culprit in global food price increases. This finding will not only feed calls to scrap biofuels (save perhaps those derived from sugar) but may lead to a recognition that resource challenges cannot be pursued in isolation. In […]
Read more...Last week, we had put up a perplexed post, wondering out loud as to why some prominent Democratic senators (Charles Schumer, John Kerry, and Claire McCaskill) were calling to block contracts being signed between oil companies and the Iraq government. Narrowly, these deals would help get the faltering country back on its feet economically, both […]
Read more...Although it’s probably obvious to readers of this blog that the economy is going to become a bigger and bigger issue as the election approaches, campaign strategies often are not as responsive to changes on the ground as one might imagine. Perhaps the most stunning example was a comment in the Financial Times on Friday […]
Read more...Why has taken it taken so long for Congress to try to rein in a Treasury, Fed, and now SEC that has roughshod over their prerogatives? And even odder, why do they send a shot across their bow now that the Fed and SEC are starting to work together on securities reform ideas (or more […]
Read more...Der Spiegel, in “The Shrinking Influence of the US Federal Reserve,” (hat tip reader Saboor) discusses how the US is submitting to a detailed, comprehensive investigation of it financial system under the Financial Sector Assessment Program. While Der Spiegel claims that this program is a humiliation to the US, the real significance may be that […]
Read more...Remarkably, a post at VoxEU, “The dangers of increased transparency in monetary policymaking,” by Ellen Meade and David Stasavage suggest in that one of the effects of the Fed’s change in 1993 to publish the minutes of FOMC meetings was less candid discussion (no surprise) which led to greater Greenspan influence over interest rate policy, […]
Read more...Have you ever watched a movie and suddenly hit a section that doesn’t quite make sense? Usually, I figure I missed a crucial twist, like a envelope being slipped to the chief baddie, or the fact that the receptionist is the detective in the opening scene. I’m throwing this one open to readers, because it […]
Read more...There has been ample speculation on whether the Saudis are truly close to tapped out as far as current oil production is concerned. The overwhelming majority believes that declining production is due to falling yields from their biggest oilfield, Gwahar, which has not been fully compensated for by increased output from other fields. A minority […]
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