Category Archives: The Geithner Resignation Watch
Bad Meat
MAD MEAT! How Securitized Lending Collapsed the Financial System, Eric Von Berg (a commercial property mortgage banker and was the President of the California Mortgage Bankers Association during the heat of the market who has been watching “Regulatory Reform” as … 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
Wall Street Big Fish Stink From The Head Down
Obama’s financial reform will fail because all the masters of the universe know how to do is make money. Wall Street’s Big Fish Stink From The Head Down – Robert Lenzner, Forbes
Larry Summers, Political Hack
Summers Abandons His Economic Views – Editorial, Wall Street Journal Even when we disagree with Larry Summers, we’ve long thought of him as a better economist than politician. But after reading his nearby letter to the editor, we may have … Continue reading
Howdy, Neighbor!
When asked what advice he would give to residents of Ashtabula County Ohio because of cutbacks in official law enforcement budgets, Judge Alfred Mackey said they should: “arm themselves. Be very careful, be vigilant, get in touch with your neighbors, … 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
What they knew and when they knew it
“I have to think this train is probably going to leave the station soon and we need to focus our efforts on explaining the story as best we can. There were too many people involved in the deals — too … Continue reading
Why Obama is Now (finally) Getting Tough on Wall Street
Originally published at Robert Reich’s Blog For almost a year now, Democratic pollsters have been pointing out how much the public hates the bank bailout and despises Wall Street. But there was no reason for Democratic leaders in Congress or … Continue reading
Obama’s Big Sellout
Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for … Continue reading
The Apparatchiks
The Big Government Boss isn’t going away
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing,” said Timothy W. Long, the chief bank examiner for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. “At the height of the economic boom, to take an aggressive supervisory approach and tell people to stop … Continue reading
Break for Companies in Bailout’s Fine Print
One of the federal government’s most opaque methods for bailing out the banking system allowed a handful of giant institutions to save up to $25 billion on their borrowing costs, a Congressional panel estimated on Friday. Seven companies received about … Continue reading
Thinking through central bank independence
I have a column in Financial Express today on the rationale for independence of the central bank, and how this is operationalised in democracies. The rationale for central bank independence The starting point of modern thinking on monetary policy is … Continue reading
Goldman’s Pre-emptive Influence
An Inside Look at How Goldman Sachs Lobbies the Senate, by Matt Taibbi: …Later on this week I have a story coming out in Rolling Stone that looks at the history of the Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers collapses. The … Continue reading
Fed Rejects Geithner Request for Study of Governance, Structure
Sept. 21 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve Board has rejected a request by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for a public review of the central bank’s structure and governance, three people familiar with the matter said. The Obama administration proposed … Continue reading
What did Hank know and when did he know it?
And then there was the rate cut the next morning. And anyone who was privileged enough to have gotten that information on Thursday afternoon was able to make a huge profit. It was clear that someone knew about the Fed’s … Continue reading
Watching the Fed…Again
Stocks’ Rise Hinges on Fed And Data New York Times … Investments Advisers LLC in Newark, New Jersey. He said people will closely watch the Fed’s take on what comes for the economy after the rebound. …
Our secret government
“When an unprecedented amount of taxpayer dollars were lent to financial institutions in unprecedented ways and the Federal Reserve refused to make public any of the details of its extraordinary lending, Bloomberg News asked the court why U.S. citizens don’t … Continue reading
More of the same at the Fed
Fed Interest Rate Path: More of the Same at the August Meeting The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decided at its August meeting to keep its rate targets and most of its credit easing programs unchanged “for an extended period”. … Continue reading
Corporate Security
In light of the recent allegations of trade secrets theft at Goldman Sachs, Ethan S. Burger and Kenneth Gray look at whether corporate security and policy are prepared to handle a “new generation of economic disruption”. Read Goldman Sachs’ Code … Continue reading
Some Fear N.Y. Fed Too Influenced by Wall Street – Washington Post
New York Fed President William C. Dudley served 10 years as Goldman Sachs’s chief economist. (By Kevin Clark — The Washington Post) By Neil Irwin Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, July 20, 2009 NEW YORK — The low-slung cubicles wrap … Continue reading
Useful Reports
How to Turn a Recession Into a Depression – Bill Niskanen, Cato Institute Upgrading Our China Outlook – Wang, Yam & Zhang, Morgan Stanley Weekly Economic & Financial Commentary – Wells Fargo Economics Weekly Economic Report – Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Hudson … Continue reading
A Colossal Lack of Judgment
Hank Paulson appeared before the House committee on (Lack of) Oversight and (Prevention of) Government Reform last week to defend his actions in the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch deal. For those of you who haven’t been following along, Bank of … Continue reading
Consumer woes mean US not free of peril yet
The reason that the savings gauge has leapt is not that Americans are saving more, but only that they are paying off their past, huge borrowings because of financial distress. Americans actually cut savings in the form of financial assets … Continue reading
ECONed: Sic Transit Gloria Americanus
Richard Smith, a London-based capital markets information technology manager, was kind enough to provide an advance copy of his review for the book ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism by Yves Smith, the author of the … Continue reading →