Fannie, Freddie Commit to Waste $40 Billion a Month Taxpayer Money
Not content to waste $700 billion of taxpayer money, Fannie and Freddie are going to waste another $40 Billion a month buying troubled assets.Federal regulators directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to start purchasing $40 billion a month of underperforming mortgage...
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As GM goes ...
By David RobertsGM stock is down 30 percent today -- the lowest GM stock price since 1950. Ford dropped by almost a quarter before a slight uptick -- lowest since 1983. S&P may downgrade their credit rating (again).Witness:Stocks, which had opened higher,...
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No Depression
Here is a brave and very interesting piece by Larry Kotlikoff and Perry Mehrling. I wonder if it is correct.Global markets have not been reassured by the coordinated interest rate cuts of several central banks or by recent congressional action, but they should...
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IMF: world financial system is teetering on "brink of systemic meltdown"
Funny how they release news like this on a Saturday when no one is looking. The world financial system is teetering on the "brink of systemic meltdown", the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned in Washington.Speaking in the US capital on...
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Citi, Wells Fargo Near a Compromise Over Wachovia
Citigroup and Wells Fargo, the two banks vying for control of the Wachovia Corporation, are negotiating a compromise that would hand the bulk of the troubled bank to Wells Fargo, according to The New York Times’s Eric Dash. On Wednesday, Citigroup and...
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Deconstructing Greenspan
Not only have individual financial institutions become less vulnerable to shocks from underlying risk factors, but also the financial system as a whole has become more resilient. Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chairman, 2004>>The quote above is...
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Lehman CDS Settlement - Ouch!
Yesterday auctions were held by the ISDA to establish a settlement price for CDS written against Lehman bonds (Bloomberg, FT, NYTimes). The auction set the value of the target bond at 8.625 cents on the dollar meaning that writers of CDS have to pay out 91.375...
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Yes, the Banks Are Rallying
Amid the turmoil, a few specific companies are performing well Friday, and they’re among those at the forefront of the banking mess that has engulfed world markets. The financial stalwarts included among the Dow industrials — Bank of America, Citigroup,...
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The Times: State to save HBOS and RBS
The Times: State to save HBOS and RBS THE government will launch the biggest rescue of Britains high-street banks tomorrow when the UKs four biggest institutions ask for a 35 billion financial lifeline....
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Food, it's what's for dinner
From the man who gave us the phrase "eat food, not too much, mostly plants" comes a memo to the next president on why food matters, and much more so than you'd think. Michael Pollan makes a compelling case for why food policy matters in making "significant...
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Mitsubishi and Morgan Stanley Renegotiating Mitsubishi Equity Purchase
Oh, just when it might be looking safe to go into the pool again, by virtue of the EU putting up a substantial enough plan to possibly start calming overfrayed nerves, another source of worry appears to be deteriorating, namely Morgan Stanley.Sports fans may...
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Hank Paulson, Drowning Scorpion
Why has Gordon Brown found it so much easier to bite the nationalization bullet than Hank Paulson? Simple: it's a question of old-fashioned ideology. Here's John Quiggin:It's fascinating to wonder how Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling must feel about all this....
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