Matthew Carniol

Last Gasp of a Doomed Currency

Mr. Schiff has a vested interest in seeing the dollar and U.S. markets collapse because he makes money when that happens.

The fact is that he has touted foreign securities, gold and betting against the dollar for a long time, and he made money in the past doing this. He's touted this type of investing all the way through the collapse in stocks from emerging markets.

Instead of getting his investors out at the top of the market, he's led them to big losses and he must have gotten further crushed as the dollar appreciated, which is something else he never saw coming.

GSEs Into Conservatorship: Can Housing Stabilize Now?

I think the jury is still out here-S&P futures are up nearly 3% so far and there's a long way to go. In any event, we really won't know how this turns out for a bit so let's return in a few weeks and see how things look.

GSEs Into Conservatorship: Can Housing Stabilize Now?

I wrote the above article and I'm glad to see the comments here. According to the statement made by Mr. Paulson, "to further support the availability of mortgage financing for millions of Americans, Treasury is initiating a temporary program to purchase GSE MBS." This is where the liquidity will be coming into the mortgage system and this is the reason mortgage rates are likely to fall. Banks will be able to originate and distribute because the government is taking the other side of the securitization trade, as I mentioned in the article.

Additionally, the lending facility will be extended to the Federal Home Loan banks.

Mr. Paulson went on to say that "given the combination of actions we are taking, including the Preferred Share Purchase Agreements, we expect the GSEs to be in a stronger position to fund their regular business activities in the capital markets," which means that credit spreads are likely to narrow.

This is more liquidity into the system and lower borrowing costs. It's expansionary.