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Time for Global Coordinated Easing

I'm not surprised ;-)

Time for Global Coordinated Easing

Translation: Kathy Lien is short dollar and wants Bernanke to reduce the interest rate to 0 so that she will get a chance to cover her position.

This article contains an extraordinary amount of mumbo-jumbo and nothing concrete about anything. I'm nor surprised.

Four Myths About the Free Market and Its 'Demise'

Good article, Rick.

Bailout Talks Lose Sight of the Cost Question

How to get the right price for the assets: We should do a variant of what the Swedes did: Offer to take a preferred equity position in any institution that requires additional capital in order to realize losses on mortgage-based assets..

The institution must use the capital to make a write-down of the specific impaired assets, and can then dispose of the assets to private investors on the open market, or hold them, a they see fit.

The price of preferred shares should be determined by some function of the market value on AND around the date of asset disposal (and/or writedown), details TBD. Of course, safeguards against price manipulations around those dates must also be enacted.

The key is to align tax-payer interest as a stakeholder with the regular shareholder interest, and the management interest. That is the only way to get the desired outcome, which is to protect the taxpayer downside and to participate in the upside. In short, the bailout should take the form of an INVESTMENT for a RETURN.

Note: I’m not talking about the type of “aligning management and shareholder interest” which is doublespeak for “handing out lot of options and restricted stock to management”. :-)

Blood on the Street Means Opportunity

>>History teaches that the greatest buying opportunities often arrive at moments of extreme stress in the financial system

I would like to see some very concrete historical examples of this statement. Is this really true? It may not be true at all, unless "moments of extreme financial stress" happens to be defined as "the exact moment the market hit bottom".

Antone could make THAT prediction. In other words, but low and sell high. Well, DUH!.

Call me a sourpuss, but this type of advice is worthless today.

The Great Fed Rate Cutting Myth: Look Out Below

I think you're right. The street insiders herald every rate cut as a buying oppotunity, then they sell into it because they know that it will eventually go lower, and the rate cut is an opportunity to unload their positions into a retail-based rally