Posted in dawn to decadence, dollar, doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, politics, volatility, wall street on November 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
It has been abundantly obvious from day one that Ben Bernanke has no understanding of “liquidity” – whatsoever.
Only 2 months (?) after Bernanke helicoptered $122 billion to AIG, AIG has come cap in hand to Uncle Sam with a down face and a confession: “The money’s all gone.” AIG supposedly wants $200 billion in new money.
AIG [...]
Posted in politics, volatility, wall street on October 29, 2008 | 1 Comment »
The most criminally ingenious short squeeze in history, engineered by those cunning Germans at Porsche.
Fortunate for them that they’re a “car company.” If a hedge fund had tried to pull that in Germany, the managers, the PMs, the traders, the analysts, the back office IT, and everybody else in the same building would have already [...]
Posted in dollar, doomsterism, inflation, monetary policy, wall street on June 9, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Didn’t get this memo. No sir.
Fetch your tin helmets once again. The European Central Bank is opting for a monetary purge. So too is the US Federal Reserve, now ruled from Dallas.
Über-hawks and Cromwellians have gained the upper hand at the great fortress banks. Whether or not they admit it, both are embarked on policies [...]
Posted in dawn to decadence, dollar, doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, politics, wall street on June 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Thomas Palley, Open Society Institute pontificator emeritus cum DC-cocktail laude, mocks himself best when he’s most honest. As do most political people.
Defending the Bernanke Fed
Filed under: U.S. Policy, Uncategorized — Administrator @ 6:37 am
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has recently been on the receiving end of significant criticism for recent monetary policy. One critique [...]
Posted in doomsterism, federal reserve, global macro, inflation, monetary policy, wall street on May 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
… underwritten by PIMCO’s Bill Gross.
Just in time for the huge TIPS burp a couple of nights ago, when massive buying pushed the 5-year TIPS yield down to -.77.
I’ve been a huge fan of the SS hypothesis for a long time, so it’s good to see the world’s biggest fixed income guru practically copy-paste from [...]
Posted in dawn to decadence, doomsterism, economy, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, politics, shitigroup, volatility, wall street on May 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
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 [...]
Posted in dollar, doomsterism, economy, inflation, monetary policy, wall street on May 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
IFR:
[13:57 US GOVTS: Fallout From Credit Crisis Seen in TIC Data]
Boston, May 15. Though foreigners continued to buy treasuries (a record $55 bln) and agency ($18 bln) paper hand over fist in the latest March TIC data the net flow for the month was actually a negative $48 bln. While far from an expert in [...]
Posted in dawn to decadence, federal reserve, wall street on May 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
You should tell them that the Rubin- and Krugman-endorsed bailout of the US financial sector has cost $475 billion in Fed stocks of US Treasuries. $1,500 for every man, woman and child in the United States.
Granted, those Treasuries have been swapped for MBS. But if it weren’t for the price support provided by the Federal [...]
Posted in inflation, volatility, wall street on May 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I’m not sure Felix Salmon is as dumb as he thinks.
May 6 2008 6:49PM EDT
Fannie Mae’s Weird Rally
I’ve seen a lot of financial institutions see their stock soar on the day they release atrocious quarterly results, and in fact I had them in mind this morning when I kicked off a [...]
Posted in doomsterism, wall street on May 6, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
More trash for the Fed to haul out?
Merrill Says Level 3 Assets Jump 70% in First Quarter (Update2)
By Joyce Moullakis
May 6 (Bloomberg) — Merrill Lynch & Co. said so-called Level 3 assets climbed 70 percent in the first quarter, as the largest U.S. brokerage reclassified commercial mortgages and other assets as hard to value.
Merrill’s [...]
Posted in dollar, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, wall street on May 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
May 2 (Bloomberg) — A month after the Federal Reserve rescued Bear Stearns Cos. from bankruptcy, Chairman Ben S. Bernanke got an S.O.S. from Congress.
There is “a potential crisis in the student-loan market” requiring “similar bold action,” Chairman Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and six other Democrats wrote Bernanke. They want the Fed to swap Treasury [...]
Posted in doomsterism, volatility, wall street on April 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
the monolines (Ambac and MBIA — remember them?) are going to be the next “crisis” … again. (h/t Alea)
Posted in dawn to decadence, dollar, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, wall street on April 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I have always thought that there’s something uniquely soporifying about DC that makes most who live there especially complacent and/or ignorant, kind of like the lead plumbing of many “established” Roman cities poisoned most urban dwellers into senility by age 55.
George Will, though, gets it. He has just enough of a flicker of cynicism for [...]
Posted in inflation, wall street on April 16, 2008 | 4 Comments »
from Institutional Risk Analytics:
… On that same note, author Martin Mayer makes an interesting comment on the BSC debacle and leverage generally in this week’s issue of Barrons:
“In the OTC derivatives market, people who want to get out of their previous trades have to offset the obligations of that trade [...]
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 [...]
Posted in dollar, doomsterism, volatility, wall street on April 16, 2008 | 1 Comment »
… via Bloomberg:
Banks That Misquote Money-Market Rates to Be Banned (Update1)
By Ben Livesey
April 16 (Bloomberg) — The British Bankers’ Association said it will ban any member deliberately misquoting lending rates at daily money-market operations amid concern that some contributors are providing misleading quotes.
The global credit squeeze has raised concern lenders have been manipulating the [...]
Posted in dawn to decadence, dollar, inflation, monetary policy, politics, wall street on April 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I will let the idiocy speak for itself.
The Inflation Solution to the Housing Mess
By JOHN H. MAKIN
April 14, 2008; Page A15
The policy alternatives in the post-housing-bubble world are painfully unpleasant. In my view, the least bad option is for the Federal Reserve to print money to help stabilize housing prices and financial markets. Yes, use [...]
Posted in dawn to decadence, dollar, doomsterism, federal reserve, monetary policy, volatility, wall street on April 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Didn’t see this gem anywhere in US business media. What an Orwellian “surprise” that is.
The Greenspan Fed: a tragedy of errors
Mr Greenspan’s apologia pro vita sua in the Financial Times of Monday, April 7 2008 fails to convince.
The Greenspan Fed (August 1987 – January 2006) did indeed contribute, through excessively lax monetary policy, to the [...]
Posted in dawn to decadence, dollar, doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, wall street on April 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
WTF:
As reported by The Wall Street Journal, one of the more remote contingencies the Federal Reserve has considered is a mirror image of the Term Securities Lending Facility: it would take the mortgage backed securities pledged to it by dealers in return for Treasurys; then repledge them to other dealers, taking Treasurys back. Since the [...]
Posted in doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, wall street on April 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
This excellent WSJ graphic has made its way around the financial internets quite a bit in the past 24 hours, and it seems like a good trend to follow.
After all the 4-letter facilities, the repo injections, the alleged repo rollovers, and so on, we have a fairly precise approximation — 35 percent of $910 billion [...]
 | Cassandra on Criminal |
 | beiruti on Hawks fiddle while al-Mustaqba… |
 | lourdes kelly on The US Treasury bill is no lon… |
| lourdes kelly on The US Treasury bill is no lon… |
 | Gail on “It depends on what your… |
