BerkeleyBob

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

AndrewBaker makes me feel warm all over towards the toiling selfless bankers. Let's make sure that Hammerin' Hank Greenberg gets back in the game to finish to good work and maybe we ought to let Mozillo have a free pass too.

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

I have been ranting about socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor for a while now. Why should top rated insurers need TARP funding? Perhaps the relationship of state v. federal regulation for adequacy reserve, etc. needs re-examination. If they have taken a hit on their annuities or got involved on the wrong side of a CDS or other derivative transaction, what does that say about their fiduciary relationship to their policy holders (and in the case of a mutual, owners)? What does it say about their ability to manage risk? The huge loss in a substantial position in B of A is a resounding loss of no confidence--the financials benefitted from the easing of mark to market, but this sector is a long way from home free. It is possible, just very difficult, to make money in this market.

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

The continued railing against the CRA is a bone in the throat of the free market idiologues but CRA was a relatively small part of the activities of Freddie and Fannie. Those agencies did some things wrong (accounting mis-statements, lobbying, confusion about who they were working for) and some things right.(Probably more realisitic appraisals and underwriting on their own loans) Encouragement of home ownership was a Bush-approved policy. Bush's statements about the unfolding global fiscal mess is characteristic, but irrelevant. On his watch and lax regulation, the US exported toxic debt fraudulently ratified by the rating agencies as high quality.