Tricky

Geithner Wants to Bring Stress Tests to Europe

I almost wish Seeking Alpha had smileys. Because this nonsense from Geitner deserves the LOL, rolling eyes and shock smilies.

The Obama administration wants Europe to puts its banks through more rigorous public stress tests, an issue Geithner will likely raise later this week at a meeting of G-8 finance ministers.

I'm laughing out loud


On Jun 09 07:46 AM Archman Investor wrote:

> Just thinking out loud.

The White House will propose a financial regulatory overhaul next week that "calls for bolstering consumer and investor protection," says Geithner. "It will streamline our out-of-date regulatory structure so that our regulatory system matches the size, shape and speed of our modern financial system."

Oh good. That makes me feel better

Palm vs. Apple vs. RIM: The Mobile OS Wars Heat Up

Another game changer could be haptic technology. If we can get a screen to the point where it is as accurate and reassuring as pressing keys on a physical keyboard, it would save a lot of space and weight.

Government bailouts of 'too big to fail' financials are the single biggest threat to the U.S.'s economic future, Alan Greenspan says, because a bailout "impairs creative destruction" by misdirecting funds to economically wasteful companies. Greenspan's also "puzzled" entrepreneurs aren't rushing to create new banks free of toxic assets.

*cough* LTCM *cough*

Might UAW's newfound stake in GM (GM) accomplish what GM itself never could: defanging the union?

^ of course, I hope you will be right. However, my fear is that they'll just become another Amtrak

Bernanke urges Congress to begin work on curbing soaring budget deficits. "With the ratio of debt to GDP already elevated, we will not be able to continue borrowing indefinitely to meet these demands." (full text)

... and floundering nationalized companies...

After testing Bing for two weeks, Walt Mossberg & Co. say Microsoft's (MSFT) new search engine "looks and feels more inviting than Google." Thomas Hawk, though, says Bing's not for him.

I would not underestimate the impact that Ray Ozzie is having over there -- MSFT is starting to come out with some very interesting technologies from several angles.

That said, I gave Bing a fair try on some real search needs I had over the last few days and it did not measure up to the relevance of the results I got from Google. We'll see what happens as it indexes more pages and refines the algorithms.

Huge Drop in Fed Liquidity Swaps

Interesting data. Some insightful commentary would have been nice

Is Bing a good name for Microsoft's new search engine? Erick Schonfeld wants you to take this poll. (So far Bing is winning - which says something about the alternatives.)

Named after the famous "machine that goes BING" in Monty Python's Meaning of Life?

NBC CEO Jeff Zucker says Hulu will start breaking even soon.

If true, that's impressive

Richard Posner opposes the soda tax, as does his blogging partner Gary Becker. But Derek Thompson thinks the idea has a redeeming quality: "We might as well tax the things we're only going to have to pay for later." (via)

The most pernicious aspect of this tax is that it would certainly prove to be a regressive one

Yields on Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) mortgage bonds rise above where they stood before the Fed announced its ambitious program to drive down rates by sopping up excess debt. The rise presents a serious challenge to the Fed's goal of sustaining low mortgage rates, and ultimately healing the housing market and the economy.

I'm sure we'll just throw more money at it

Steven Pearlstein wants to see the Fed stripped of its role in supervising banks: "It saw how so much risk was being transferred from the banks to the shadow banking system... and it did nothing to stop it or the regulatory arbitrage that lay behind it. It has never acknowledged that failure, never apologized for it and continues to rationalize its behavior with all the 'perfect storm' nonsense."

Mr. Pearlstein might be in for a huge disappointment, as it appears the Fed will get to oversee many more types of companies, if they are deemed to be "systemically critical" to the financial system?

The problem with the infamous stress tests, TNP's Noam Scheiber says, is not that the government won't acknowledge the size of banks' losses. It's that it squandered a rare opportunity: to snap banks out of a state of perpetual denial and unfettered optimism.

Actually, I thought the point of the stress tests was to perpetuate the perpetual denial and unfettered optimism