So far, it hasn’t gotten much attention in the mainstream business press, but Bloomberg and the Financial Times are very much on top of the story: the House Financial Services Committee is moving forward with proposals to impose new regulations on subprime lending. And Democrats and Republicans are largely on the same page. There are […]
Read more...A front page story in today’s Financial Times, “Foreign carmakers doubt Detroit’s ethanol,” report on a split of opinon within the auto industry as to which technology to pursue to reduce carbon emissions. US automakers are keenly promoting E85, which is a mixture of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline; foreign companies are investing in diesel, […]
Read more...The Financial Times today reports on an open letter from Charles Dallara, the head of the lobbying group representing the world’s largest financial institutions, to Gordon Brown, the UK chancellor and chairman of the IMF’s governing council, on the risks to growth. What is fascinating, and worrisome, is that the letter doesn’t talk about the […]
Read more...Sorry for the number of posts from the Financial Times today, but it happens to have stories no one else is carrying (yet). The FT tells us today that the EU has ordered Microsoft to hand over what the company calls “sensitive and valuable technical information about its Windows operating system for next to no […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal reports tonight on its website, and presumably tomorrow in its print edition, that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Friday that ongoing issues in the subprime mortgage market could force bank regulators to rethink their enforcement of a 30-year-old law that requires banks to serve the credit needs in their communities…. […]
Read more...Faithful readers may have read our recent posts on the limits to the Fed’s regulatory authority, both relative to the subprime mess and to the proliferation of new instruments (see here and here and here). We had the spectacle last week of Roger Cole, the Federal Reserve’s director of supervision and regulation appearing before the […]
Read more...A post from a reader, “Toothless Fed,” argues that the latest wave of financial innovation has produced “profit grabs” by the few at the expense of the many, Ponzi schemes, and an erosion of traditional values like prudence. Overheated? Overwrought? Perhaps. Or maybe he’s just calling a spade a spade. Other people are coming to […]
Read more...Forgive us if we seem to be picking on New York Fed president Timothy Geithner. Actually, not that we know him, but he has a reputation (by Fed standards) for candor. So the problems we have with his speech should not be seen as an attack on him, but on the increasing difficulty of the […]
Read more...Compared to other Fed presidents, Timothy Geithner is straightforward and more than usually willing to talk about bad things. So when he gives a speech that is comparatively upbeat, as he did earlier this week (“Credit Markets Innovations and Their Implications“) it should be reassuring. So why did this speech bother me? It wasn’t as […]
Read more...On Thursday, both Democratic and Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee chewed out Roger Cole, the Federal Reserve’s director of supervision and regulation, for failing to intervene in the rapid rise of the issuance of mortgages to customers who were clearly likely to default, and now are, losing their homes and their investment in […]
Read more...I refrained a day in the hopes that the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times would report on this story, but I again find myself in the position of turning to the Financial Times. This story, “Warning on hedge funds’ conflict of interest,” discusses that international regulators are concerned about hedge funds ability […]
Read more...A Reuters story, “U.S. struggles to build green homes,” describes Americans’ deep seated resistance to doing the right thing, energy-wise: Regardless of the sales pitch, energy efficiency is an opportunity that Americans shun…. While gas-guzzling vehicles draw the most criticism, homes and businesses consume even more energy — 40 percent of the U.S. total in […]
Read more...There was a great flurry of activity last year when many hedge funds either sought to comply with new SEC registration requirements that applied to all but fairly small hedge funds, or reorganized themselves so as not to qualify (either by having long lock-ups, or by reorganizing themselves offshore). But it all came to naught […]
Read more...Mark Thoma on Economist’s View, sums up his view in his headline, “Kenneth Rogoff: German Leaders Are Right About Hedge Fund Transparency and Regulation“. Rogoff takes issue with Paulson’s dismissal of the idea of making hedge funds more accountable. It’s odd that Paulson even thinks he had a vote on this issue, since the Treasury […]
Read more...A great post, “CAFE Standards,” from James Hamilton at Econbrowser on how fuel efficiency standards (technically, corporate average fuel efficiency, or CAFE) work and their effects in practice. He in turn cites research by Marc Jacobsen, an economics PhD at Stanford. I found it useful to understand a bit more about how these standards are […]
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