The Wall Street protesters have been sold a bill of goods, Peter Wallison writes: Reckless government policies, not private greed, brought about the housing bubble and resulting financial crisis. The private financial sector "cannot fairly be accused of causing the crisis when only a small minority of subprime mortgages outstanding in 2008 were the result of that private activity." [View news story]
Just wait and watch "student loans" since the Govt took over.
The Wall Street protesters have been sold a bill of goods, Peter Wallison writes: Reckless government policies, not private greed, brought about the housing bubble and resulting financial crisis. The private financial sector "cannot fairly be accused of causing the crisis when only a small minority of subprime mortgages outstanding in 2008 were the result of that private activity." [View news story]
HerrHansa, your points are well and rarely made. One further comment on Joseph Cassano. If I remember correctly, Cassano promptly left the country and is probably living comfortably in a villa somewhere.
Is High-Frequency Trading Causing Higher Volatility? [View article]
A further thought on how to avoid stock "in play" with HFT. Watch stock with high volume trade, then move on. (example: C before its 10-1 reverse split) Trade limits only. HFT is like playing chess with computers: very dangerous, and we're at strong disadvantages. HFT firms aren't in business to invest, they're in business to make money....yours.
In a press briefing at the White House, President Obama says an agreement on debt limit legislation is a done deal. All that's left are votes in the House and Senate. S&P 500 futures remain about 1.3% higher. [View news story]
Asian markets began climbing as soon as the "deal" was announced....until our Petulant President spoke. If we listened, we heard exactly who he is. He's still angry, but at least now he can get back to campaigning, trashing those who pay taxes to support the 45% who pay nothing, and we can hope for some temporary sanity in the Market. Some reassurance would have been 'nice' and nobody is happy... but we are relieved. And we will remember.
Jefferson County - home to Birmingham, Alabama - may be on the verge of filing the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. Jefferson's distress comes from the Wall Street-enabled borrowing to finance the "Taj Mahal of sewer-treatment plants" during the credit bubble, a scheme memorably chronicled by Matt Taibbi. [View news story]
More evidence of borrow-and-spend....then blame....in our political culture.
Citigroup's (C) Vikram Pandit, who took a $1 salary after his bank received the most taxpayer assistance of any U.S. lender, is poised to collect $80M from other payments and awards that may eventually total more than $200M. "Taxpayers saved this bank, and he’s getting a bundle while shareholders are getting shortchanged on the stock price," Graef Crystal remarks. [View news story]
blah-blah-blah. Lefties will be all over this for talking point pablum, never noticing Pandit's progress with this bank.
The sexual assault case against former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is near collapse as investigators are questioning the credibility of his accuser. Prosecutors plan to tell a judge on Friday they have "problems with the case," making it possible Strauss-Kahn could be released on his own recognizance tomorrow. [View news story]
A number of senators are petitioning the FTC to probe whether oil refiners kept inventories artificially low in order to maintain high gas prices. The group notes refineries are using only 81.7% of their capacity, down 7% from this time last year. [View news story]
Politics and posturing. Apparently thrashing banks and oil, the twin bogeymen of politics, are still the popular political cliches. Remember the 'moratorium' on offshore drilling, anybody?
Americans watch protests against oppressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet in the U.S., 1% of the people take nearly 25% of all income - an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret, Joseph Stiglitz writes. The top 1% may have the best houses, educations and lifestyles, but "their fate is bound up with how the other 99% live." [View news story]
Just Socialist Talking Points, and already tiresome.
Elizabeth Warren defends the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau against Republican criticism that it is a dangerous new bureaucracy. Its mission, she says, is "straightforward: make prices clear, make risks clear" so consumers can compare products. "If we had had this agency six years ago, eight years ago, we would not be in the mess we are today." [View news story]
Elizabeth Warren and her brand new agency for which she lobbied so hard...would be a good place to downsize part of the deficit.
Given the seriousness of the insider trading claims against Rajat Gupta, the former Goldman Sachs (GS) director accused of passing insider tips to Raj Rajaratnam, why hasn’t the Justice Department brought criminal charges? It raises a red flag among some legal experts about the SEC’s motivations. [View news story]
Regulators can certainly do some heavy damage by "suggesting" and "threatening" can't they? Besides, fines and penalties seem to be a new form of business taxation. DOJ (Holder and his boss), as always, has corporations firmly in their sights. Crime? Not so much.
The cut in Social Security payroll taxes helped boost incomes last month, but personal spending fell anyway. Blame it on rising prices: “Higher food and gasoline prices are swallowing up a larger proportion of the household budgets and making consumers feel that they should save more and spend less,” IHS Global Insight's Chris Christopher writes. [View news story]
Of course, the down side of the Social Security tax reduction ... is the further defunding of Social Security itself, except to business, naturally. And, let's hide the lock box key, so Govt can't filter the rest of it.
QE2 is a "total failure, except for those folks who work on Wall Street," Rep. Ron Paul says. One problem is the Fed's reliance on core CPI, which excludes food and energy, thus providing Bernanke with a warped sense of true inflation. "They rig that number," Paul says. "[Bernanke] looks at government stats that are fudged to reassure him he doesn't have to do anything." [View news story]
So the politicians now think they're smarter than Bernanke? Please. Headline hunters, that's all. Bernanke is very carefully walking a very fine line. Who better?
How much debt can the U.S. handle? A new paper quantifies an 80% public debt to GDP ratio - where the U.S. is right now - as the point at which a nation reaches a potential tipping point; once a nation has debt above that level, it becomes vulnerable to the kind of self-reinforcing vicious cycles that have crippled others. Two responses from Fed officials see the analysis as simplistic and eurocentric. [View news story]
The Wall Street protesters have been sold a bill of goods, Peter Wallison writes: Reckless government policies, not private greed, brought about the housing bubble and resulting financial crisis. The private financial sector "cannot fairly be accused of causing the crisis when only a small minority of subprime mortgages outstanding in 2008 were the result of that private activity." [View news story]
The Wall Street protesters have been sold a bill of goods, Peter Wallison writes: Reckless government policies, not private greed, brought about the housing bubble and resulting financial crisis. The private financial sector "cannot fairly be accused of causing the crisis when only a small minority of subprime mortgages outstanding in 2008 were the result of that private activity." [View news story]
Is High-Frequency Trading Causing Higher Volatility? [View article]
Is High-Frequency Trading Causing Higher Volatility? [View article]
In a press briefing at the White House, President Obama says an agreement on debt limit legislation is a done deal. All that's left are votes in the House and Senate. S&P 500 futures remain about 1.3% higher. [View news story]
Jefferson County - home to Birmingham, Alabama - may be on the verge of filing the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. Jefferson's distress comes from the Wall Street-enabled borrowing to finance the "Taj Mahal of sewer-treatment plants" during the credit bubble, a scheme memorably chronicled by Matt Taibbi. [View news story]
Citigroup's (C) Vikram Pandit, who took a $1 salary after his bank received the most taxpayer assistance of any U.S. lender, is poised to collect $80M from other payments and awards that may eventually total more than $200M. "Taxpayers saved this bank, and he’s getting a bundle while shareholders are getting shortchanged on the stock price," Graef Crystal remarks. [View news story]
The sexual assault case against former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is near collapse as investigators are questioning the credibility of his accuser. Prosecutors plan to tell a judge on Friday they have "problems with the case," making it possible Strauss-Kahn could be released on his own recognizance tomorrow. [View news story]
A number of senators are petitioning the FTC to probe whether oil refiners kept inventories artificially low in order to maintain high gas prices. The group notes refineries are using only 81.7% of their capacity, down 7% from this time last year. [View news story]
Americans watch protests against oppressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet in the U.S., 1% of the people take nearly 25% of all income - an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret, Joseph Stiglitz writes. The top 1% may have the best houses, educations and lifestyles, but "their fate is bound up with how the other 99% live." [View news story]
Elizabeth Warren defends the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau against Republican criticism that it is a dangerous new bureaucracy. Its mission, she says, is "straightforward: make prices clear, make risks clear" so consumers can compare products. "If we had had this agency six years ago, eight years ago, we would not be in the mess we are today." [View news story]
Given the seriousness of the insider trading claims against Rajat Gupta, the former Goldman Sachs (GS) director accused of passing insider tips to Raj Rajaratnam, why hasn’t the Justice Department brought criminal charges? It raises a red flag among some legal experts about the SEC’s motivations. [View news story]
The cut in Social Security payroll taxes helped boost incomes last month, but personal spending fell anyway. Blame it on rising prices: “Higher food and gasoline prices are swallowing up a larger proportion of the household budgets and making consumers feel that they should save more and spend less,” IHS Global Insight's Chris Christopher writes. [View news story]
QE2 is a "total failure, except for those folks who work on Wall Street," Rep. Ron Paul says. One problem is the Fed's reliance on core CPI, which excludes food and energy, thus providing Bernanke with a warped sense of true inflation. "They rig that number," Paul says. "[Bernanke] looks at government stats that are fudged to reassure him he doesn't have to do anything." [View news story]
How much debt can the U.S. handle? A new paper quantifies an 80% public debt to GDP ratio - where the U.S. is right now - as the point at which a nation reaches a potential tipping point; once a nation has debt above that level, it becomes vulnerable to the kind of self-reinforcing vicious cycles that have crippled others. Two responses from Fed officials see the analysis as simplistic and eurocentric. [View news story]