Readers may recall that we were early to deride the Paulson Master Liquidity Enhancement Conduit, and its different in name, same in intent and basic form successors. Every one of these had the same premise: find a way for banks to offload their dreck. But the only way the banks would do that voluntarily was […]
Read more...One of the things that has intrigued me about the financial crisis is that it is pretty clear that looting took place at the high end of the financial services industry, yet few have called it by that name, in part because it has been difficult to identify the mechanisms by which it occurred. Looting, […]
Read more...Well, once in a while the authorities exceed my low expectations, and this is one of those instances. The Fed is insisting that the bank recipients of TARP fund meet a higher standard, in terms of balance sheet strength, than set in the stress tests. The banks are grumbling that this is not what they […]
Read more...The Financial Times has a brief write up of an interview with the head of the Philadelphia Fed, Charles Plosser. His remarks seem more anodyne than they really are: The Federal Reserve should not be involved in financing toxic assets that date from the bubble era, Charles Plosser, president of the Philadelphia Fed, has told […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of the site Credit Writedowns. I was on the BBC yesterday talking autos and my commentary was almost entirely political. So, as we await the likely General Motors bankruptcy, I think it bears discussing how political this process has been and will continue to be. General Motors is a monster company […]
Read more...As readers may recall, we had been skeptical (and critical) of the Public Private Investment Partnership from the outset. It was the third effort at a program that had failed twice under Hank Paulson, namely, to have banks get dud assets off their balance sheets by selling them to a sucker. That’s why this program […]
Read more...The very fact that it took such a long headline to explain the latest (possible) Treasury bouquet to the TARP recipients says the odds are high the troubling scenario will come to pass. With the Fed a combo hedge fund/SIV and the Treasury actively engaged in regulatory arbitrage (evading budgetary restrictions by making clever use […]
Read more...I always enjoy reading the Financial Times’ editor, Martin Wolf, but I sometime forget how refreshing and pointed he can be when he decides to let loose at a deserving target. Today’s lesson is the almost ludicrous efforts of the financial services industry to explain why the debacle that they just foisted on all of […]
Read more...The notorious Public Private Investment Partnership, aka “Son of MLEC,” was supposed to be up and running as of early May but its debut has instead been pushed off to July. The need to sort out some details is the official reason for the delay, but the Financial Times’ Gillian Tett says that the banks […]
Read more...It’s been obvious to anyone who bothered paying attention that the Fed is increasingly acting as an extension of the Administration, without the oversight and disclosure to which the Executive Branch is subject. For instance, only the Federal Reserve Board of Governors appears to be obligated to honor to Freedom of Information Act requests (the […]
Read more...You have to give former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan credit for having no shame. Well, he did once look a bit rattled before Congress for about five minutes and ‘fessed up it never occurred to him that people would be so greedy as to pull so much cash out of companies so as to leave […]
Read more...Elizabeth Warren, head of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the TARP, has been a vocal advocate for the need for a financial product safety commission. The notion, which seemed quixotic a few weeks ago, is getting consideration by the Obama Administration. Given how industry friendly Team Obama’s financial services industry measures have been, it runs […]
Read more...Elizabeth Warren is facing the peculiar experience of being Mr. Smith in Washington. I am a big fan of her position and message, and have come to notice that (not surprisingly) the posture of her interviewer makes a great difference in how well she comes off. Bill Maher pitched a bunch of softballs, and Warren […]
Read more...For those of you who know the Myers-Briggs personality diagnostic, it defines 16 types by establishing four attributes, of which an individual can be either A or B. Some are pretty obvious: extroverted versus introverted, thinking versus feeling. One is called “sensing versus intuitive.” Sensing people are literal-minded, while intuitives are imaginative. The last type […]
Read more...There is a rather curious lead story up at the Financial Times website tonight. I’m generally a fan of the FT, but I am beginning to wonder if its standards are slipping. Headline: “Smaller US banks need additional $24bn” But what the story tells us is that “research conducted for the Financial Times” which was […]
Read more...