Category Archives: Negative Cash Flow
Playing The Market Plunge
investors should marshal their cash smartly. For a decade or more, Wall Street’s financial-planning machinery has claimed to have optimized the investing equation and boiled it down to simple calculations encouraging investors to abide by asset-allocation models heavy reliant on … Continue reading
How Carl Levin Got Goldman Sachs’s Goat
Interview by Paul Smalera, senior editorApril 30, 2010: 3:21 PM ET (Fortune) — At Tuesday’s epic Goldman Sachs hearing, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan led a public grilling of Wall Street not seen by a government panel since the Depression-investigating … Continue reading
Does It Make Sense to Resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act?
In the present system, the more unrestricted the banks are, the more money they can generate “out of thin air,” and the more damage they can inflict upon the wealth-generation process. FULL ARTICLE by Frank Shostak
A Short Question For Senior Officials Of The New York Fed
At the height of the financial panic last fall Goldman Sachs became a bank holding company, which enabled it to borrow directly from the Federal Reserve. It also became subject to supervision by the Federal Reserve Board (with the NY Fed on point) – … Continue reading
A CLOSER LOOK AT THOSE GREAT HOUSING FIGURES
Just yesterday, for instance, the Commerce Department reported that new-home sales grew at an annualized rate of 11 percent last month, which was much better than people were expecting. And if you look under the covers, the annualized rate actually … Continue reading
Securitization was maddeningly complex. Mandated transparency is the only solution.
With so much complexity, and uncertainty about future performance, it is not surprising that the securities are difficult to price and that trading dried up. Without market prices, valuation on the books of banks is suspect and counterparties are reluctant … Continue reading
The end of the recession will merely be the start of a long, painful journey, says Edmund Conway.
t’s a game of far more than two halves: more tactical than cricket, more stomach-churning than boxing and more complex than bridge. Throughout a magnificent summer of sport, one competition has lasted longer than any other, and generated the most … Continue reading
Transparency: The Largest Bankruptcies in History
Last week, General Motors began the fourth largest bankruptcy proceedings in history, joining the many other large and venerable companies that have sunk to the bottom during this economic crisis. In fact, eight of the 20 largest bankruptcies have happened … Continue reading
Forgetting What We Learned
ILLITERACY IN HIGH PLACES by Paul Craig Roberts If a person lives long enough, he can watch everyone forget everything they learned. Everyone includes Federal Reserve Chairmen, economists, Bank of America “strategists,” and even Bloomberg.com. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke … Continue reading
It’s Official: Worst Recession in Five Decades
This recession is now the worst since at least 1958, which is as far back as the index of coincident indicators stretches back. The Conference Board reported today that the index, which is intended to measure how the economy is … Continue reading
ARMs Away!
Subprime is done. All the teaser rates are over, the interest rates have reset and the writing is on the wall. But in the coming quarters, the scenario will play out with other exotic mortgages, Option ARM (pick-a-pay), Alt-A, etc. … Continue reading
Beggars Are We All…..
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/ Bernanke’s wager is on a virtual free lunch by printing money. “Fed chair Ben Bernanke has long argued that central banks can bring down long-term borrowing rates by purchasing bonds “at essentially no cost”. His frequent writings rarely ask … Continue reading
Credit Card Changes
From the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/your-money/20money.html?_r=1&hp At first glance, the sweeping credit card legislation that passed the Senate on Tuesday looks like a huge victory for consumers. The bill, after all, contains relief from penalty fees and certain interest rate spikes. But … Continue reading
