The credit crisis has separated true libertarians from phony libertarians, and separated true liberals from phony liberals.
The phony liberals have inadvertently mocked themselves throughout the entire credit crisis, manning the barricades to defend the greatest act of socialism for the rich in US history. Ditto for supposed “libertarians,” eg Robert Rubin, Bruce Kovner, and the [...]
Archive for the ‘shitigroup’ Category
Bleeding hearts v. bleeding hearts: Tanta’s home run
Posted in dawn to decadence, doomsterism, economy, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, politics, shitigroup, volatility, wall street on May 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Fun times @ Freddie
Posted in dawn to decadence, shitigroup on May 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
via
[...]
Net loss for the first quarter of 2008 was $151 million, compared to a net loss of $2.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007. Improved results reflect reduced losses related to a change in the guarantee obligation valuation methodology implemented under SFAS No. 157, “Fair Value Measurements” (SFAS 157), which better aligns revenue recognition [...]
BOE blackout
Posted in inflation, monetary policy, shitigroup, volatility on April 29, 2008 | 1 Comment »
via
The Bank of England has imposed a permanent news blackout on its £50bn-plus plan to ease the credit crunch.
Ferocious and unprecedented secrecy means taxpayers will never know the names of the banks that have been supported through the special liquidity scheme, which was unveiled by Bank Governor Mervyn King last week.
Requests under the Freedom of [...]
The JPMC bailout
Posted in dawn to decadence, doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, politics, shitigroup, wall street on April 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The bailout of Bear Stearns was, in effect, a bailout of JPMorgan Chase.
Chase wrote the most credit default swaps of anyone. They also had by far the largest number of open but uncleared swaps (i.e., JPMC sells one side of the swap to a counterparty, but cannot spin off its own side — overwhelmingly, the [...]
Volcker criticizes BSC bailout
Posted in doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, shitigroup, wall street on April 9, 2008 | 3 Comments »
I didn’t post this article at first, because I thought the financial press was making a much bigger deal out of what seemed, to me, a fairly tepid critique of Bernanke’s actions.
April 8 (Bloomberg) — Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker questioned the central bank’s decision to rescue Bear Stearns Cos. with a $29 billion [...]
The Nordic option
Posted in shitigroup, volatility, wall street on March 31, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard:
The Fed has been criticised for its rescue of Bear Stearns, which critics say has degenerated into a taxpayer gift to rich bankers.
A senior official at one of the Scandinavian central banks told The Daily Telegraph that Fed strategists had stepped up contacts to learn how Norway, Sweden and Finland managed their traumatic crisis [...]
If you don’t like the most recent Level 3 asset price, just make up a new one
Posted in shitigroup, wall street on March 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The SEC:
… Fair value assumes the exchange of assets or liabilities in orderly transactions. Under SFAS 157, it is appropriate for you to consider actual market prices, or observable inputs, even when the market is less liquid than historical market volumes, unless those prices are the result of a forced liquidation or distress sale. …
Considering [...]
Lehman: Cutting corners to survive?
Posted in doomsterism, shitigroup, wall street on March 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
On March 17, Lehman dropped more than 40 percent in one day, at one point.
How’d they survive?
Portfolio, not normally my favorite magazine, has an interesting article on the subject:
Bear Stearns collapsed for two reasons. It had a short-term funding crisis where lenders pulled their loans and customers pulled their cash. But it also had a [...]
Viva la cash-for-trash: FHLBs to buy $150bn (more??) worth of junk debt?
Posted in doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, shitigroup, wall street on March 24, 2008 | 5 Comments »
Bloomberg:
Federal Home Loan Banks May Buy $150 Billion of Bonds (Update1)
By Dawn Kopecki and Jody Shenn
March 24 (Bloomberg) — Federal Home Loan Banks were freed to increase their purchase of mortgage-backed bonds by about $150 billion as part of a government effort to pump money back into a market that slumped as the housing [...]
Why the ‘margin call on the United States’ has only begun
Posted in doomsterism, inflation, shitigroup, wall street on March 23, 2008 | 1 Comment »
This .pdf is a good primer on why the credit unwind has a long, long way to go — regardless of what anybody does.
The analyses of MBIA and Ambac (slides 58-75) are particularly illuminating, detailed, well-done, and scary.
Lehman Brothers
Posted in doomsterism, shitigroup, volatility, wall street on March 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
… is down 26 30 33 37 percent in pre-market trading …
Merrill: -16%
Morgan Stanley: -12%
Goldman, UBS and Wachovia: -9%
Citigroup: -5%
The Bear Stearns / Ben Bernanke Misery Index
Posted in dawn to decadence, doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, shitigroup, volatility, wall street on March 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Oil: $110
Gold: $1020
JPY-USD: Y97.3
USD-EUR: $1.58
Inflation: Who knows? But MZM is running at 16 percent, year-on-year.
Red: Value of USD
Blue: Money zero maturity, the aggregate of cash, short-term bonds, CDs, and other very liquid cash instruments in the system, aka MZM; %chng from year ago
Green: Commercial lending, %chng from year ago
$2.00
Posted in doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, shitigroup, volatility, wall street on March 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Wow.
JPMorgan Buys Bear Stearns for $2 a Share After Clients Flee
By Yalman Onaran
March 16 (Bloomberg) — JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to buy Bear Stearns Cos. for about $2 a share after a run on the company ended 85 years of independence for Wall Street’s fifth- largest securities firm and prompted a bailout by [...]
Northern Bear Stearns Rock
Posted in dawn to decadence, doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, shitigroup, volatility, wall street on March 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
With a hat tip to the redoubtable Mish Shedlock, let’s look at BSC’s balance sheet, viewable here.
Hmm.
$13.4 trillion of derivatives positions.
And the market is supposed to figure out to what extent this behemoth has not been marked to market — in 26 days?
When I first heard the scale of the leverage of BSC’s Dublin subsidiary [...]
Why I don’t believe in ‘technical analysis’
Posted in doomsterism, shitigroup, wall street on March 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The late Bear Stearns (1923-2008), from 1985. (TOH Maoxian)
The latest on Bear Stearns …
Posted in doomsterism, shitigroup, volatility, wall street on March 15, 2008 | 1 Comment »
LONDON: Financial market traders across London have been told by their firms to stop dealing with Bear Stearns, while dealers in New York scaled back their transactions with the ailing investment bank, sources in several dealing rooms said on Friday.
At least six major institutions in London — including Commerzbank , Royal Bank of Scotland and [...]
Bear Stearns on death row; Lehman on the brink
Posted in dawn to decadence, dollar, doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, shitigroup, volatility, wall street on March 14, 2008 | 4 Comments »
March 14 (Bloomberg) — Bear Stearns Cos. obtained emergency funding from JPMorgan Chase & Co. and the New York Federal Reserve as the securities firm said its cash position had “significantly deteriorated.”The New York Fed will “provide non-recourse, back-to-back” financing for up to 28 days, JPMorgan said in a statement [...]
The US Treasury bill is no longer the safest asset in the world
Posted in dawn to decadence, doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, politics, shitigroup, volatility on March 11, 2008 | 2 Comments »
If this won’t awaken the all-bullish-all the time cult of optimism from its decade-long hypnosis, I don’t know what will.
U.S. Treasuries Riskier Than German Debt, Default Swaps Show
By Abigail Moses
March 11 (Bloomberg) — The risk of losses on U.S. Treasury notes exceeded German bunds for the first time ever amid investor concern the subprime [...]
Fitch is great
Posted in doomsterism, haha, shitigroup, wall street on March 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
MBIA has kept up a game of begging for massive ratings concessions from Fitch in private, while trash-talking the ratings agencies (especially Fitch, which is by far the most aggressive of the three) in public.
Fitch is not amused.
13:20
MBI MBIA Inc: Follow up on Fitch’s response to MBIA; willing to continue ratings without charge to MBIA [...]
ABK caught red-handed
Posted in haha, inflation, shitigroup, wall street on March 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Barry Ritholtz has a bullseye Bloomberg screenshot showing that a single buyer pumped up ABK’s share price 25 percent, at 4:05 pm. I’m sure it’s a “complete” coincidence that that day happened to be the day before Ambac’s “$1.5 billion” share offering. The picture really says it all: this is the most obvious pump (as [...]
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