farmer448

Where's the Derivatives Exposure?

I am a bit confused. If a derivative is a form of hedge or insurance, then why is 80% of the insurance written by 5 banks? It would seem to me that this is a heavy concentration of risk that go against the basic business principals of risk.

Three lunchtime reads: 1) Seven companies beating the odds 2) CIT Group’s ‘capital’: All talk, no trousers 3) Las Vegas as a lesson in basic economics

Lost Wages is hardly a good example of Macro Economic policy. Of course I expect the author has not lived through the single industry boom and bust cycle.

Interestingly enough he says all the Mexican Construction Workers left when construction died. What about all the American Construction Workers?

The theft of Goldman Sachs' (GS) proprietary trading secrets could impact the firm's market share, and puts the U.S. markets at risk of manipulation, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Facciponti says. Facciponti notes the copy of Goldman's code transferred to a server in Germany is still at large.

So from the statement above, it is OK for Goldman Sacks to manipulate the market as they paid for the proprietary code.
Second, folks this is source code, and probably not the complete system for computerized trading.

This seems to be more about computer science ignorance. So Goldman has used the Feds to "Protect" their proprietary secrets.

What's Citi Doing to Pandit?

People, I look a Citicorp like GM. Yes they say they are a bank but they treat their retail customers like turds. Customer Service is a joke. Citimortgage cannot even pay escrowed taxes on a timely basis and then blames the customer by charging the customer for the late penalties and interest. They are No 10 in all time bad customer service (MSN Money).

So why would I do business with a bank who cannot even do the basics correctly?

Thank-god their are still regional and locally owned banks....

At the Senate hearings this morning, lawmakers voiced concerns Obama's regulatory reform puts too much faith in the Fed, overlooking its previous failures and potential conflicts with its fiscal duties. The proposal "represents a grossly inflated view of the Fed's expertise," Sen. Richard Shelby said. Geithner, of course, begs to differ.

It is funny our Representatives are so worried about adding powers to the FED.
Hasn't the history been the exact opposite?

So Greenspan had requlation Q to dampen the irrational exuburance of the late 1990's. But he didn't use it.

The regulators (FED and SEC0 of this new century have had the tools but failed to use them.

So how does Congress propose to handle failures by the organizations charged with regulation failing to do their jobs.

PS Where is the consumer/voter voice in all of this??

The Economy Now: A 5-Point Summary

I find it funny when you say high unemployement means no inflation. Where were these people during the late 70's with WIN, Stagflation, and 15 % prime rates????

Citigroup - Tax Preservation = Poison Pill

Now if they can only figure out how to provide customer service to their customers. They broke into the 10 worst cutomer service companies this year...
moneycentral.msn.com/c...

Legacy Loan Program Called Off

Can you say Japan Bank Stategy. Keep those bad loans on the books and we can have a decade of no growth. For the paranoid is this a big business/republican stategy to return to power?

Banks Try to Block Regulation, Saying It Will Hamper Innovation

Maybe it is time to disallow Corporations, Limited Liability Partnerships, Limited Liability Corporations any of the rights of citizens.

Let the Financial Scapegoat Go

Hmm overspeculation in the real estate market. I guess it also did not happen in the S&L crisis in the US or in Japan before the lost decade.
And of my we cannot fault Standard And Poors or Moodys for sticking their head in the grouns.
And not hedge fund ever went bust except when they bet on Russian Bonds??? Long Term Capital had to be bailed out and not left to rot in bankruptcy,
Derivatives, we don't need no stinkin regulation...Opps Lehman and AIG. And 500+ trillion dollars of derivative contracts on a 600 trillion dollar economy. Homey thinks something is rotton in der state of Denmark.
Oh, manufacturing is great here in the US. Opps GMAC, GE's Financial, Chryler Financial took down these well financially managed manufacturing companies.
And please explain 140 plus oil without all the speculation the hedge funds were doing in the futures market.
And who would ever think leveraging equity at 30 to 1 is the smart thing for high risk investment banks when commercial is 10-12 to 1.
And finally, who put all the cheap money out there in the first place? Japan with zero rates and the Federal Reserve?
So it would appear you are taking the same kind of mind altering drugs the smart guys on wall street were dispensing.

An accounting rule allowing JPMorgan (JPM) to transform bad loans it bought from WaMu into income is about to net the bank $29B. Wells Fargo (WFC), BoA (BAC) and PNC Financial (PNC) are poised to benefit from the same rule.

JP Morgan writes the loans down 29 billion when WAMU fails. ^ months later writes them up for 29 billion. Yes we should trust the financial system, gag.......

Putting Deficits into Perspective

The only problem with the analysis is we have things like TIPS and cost of living adjustments. People forget that in the inflation of 1973 through 1980 the middle class was again hosed. Thus the use of inflation as a hidden tax was greatly reduced.


Congress has a lot of tough issues on its plate. It is time for the electorate to force congress to act or do not re-elect them.

The radical changes to the OTC derivatives market proposed recently by Tim Geithner are strangely similar to a framework suggested by Goldman Sachs (GS), JPMorgan (JPM), Credit Suisse (CS) and Barclays (BCS). Not surprisingly, benefits of the new plan seem to be skewed in banks' favor.

As Gomer Pyle used to say, "Surprise, Surprise, Surprise"

Citigroup's Doomed IT Strategy

Digs,

I assume you do not do systems for CitiMortgage. What a bunch of screwups. The customer service system is a joke.
When the systems fail, customer service cannot fix it. They do not have visibility into subcontractor systems. They are only responsible for the call and not the problem. So if it cannot be solved in a call no one will fix the problem.

Cost me 114 dollars in penalties and interest to my School District to find this out. CitiMortgage says not my job even though they over collected the taxes.

The problem is not just in IT systems, but in management systems that actualy work.

Credit Cards: Do the Banks Own the Senate?

Rhetorical questions are not appreciated in a debate