Chris White

How We Measure Financial Productivity Growth

Financial sector productivity: 1) increase in the rate of increase of total financial turn-over per total man-hours in the business, 2) increase in rate of increase of fees and bonusses per unit increase in total turnover per manhour

It Might Be Impossible to Stop the Decline of Housing Prices

Dear Steve
Please don't take this wrong. There is a secret. Let me tell you what it is. A job creation program which starts to rebuild the wages and earnings of America's workers. Mortgages used to be qualified on the basis of peoples' incomes, and their incomes were verified from their employment. Housing prices are not going to recover until people start to feel some confidence in their ability to pay their way, and that means jobs. This is another secret. There are no financial gimmicks, mechanisms or sch like which can replace that.

Oh, I almost forgot, since peoples' incomes get spent, job creation also helps business.

The Reagan Counterrevolution

Reagan's Philosophy? Grecian Formula + Cue Cards. If you don't know that you've kind of missed out on what's happened over the last 28 years. Never mind In the US there will always be an opportunity to start over. That's what Regan did isn't it? Sports caster, movie star,union leader, McCarthy-ite snitch, GE mouthpiece, and so on. Nostalgia for fantasy isn't a substitute for policy.

RNC / DNC: Crisis? What Crisis?

I think it is a very fruitful correlation, which could lead on to other considerations perhaps. Three might come to mind. First, do either of the tickets have knowledge they are not talking about? Second, if they do, and were to use that knowledge would the effect be beneficial or harmful? Third, if one of them broke with the story that everything is under control etc of Paulsen and Bernanke what would the reaction be from the other and the media "Irresponsible, panic mongering, doom saying nabobs of negativism"?
In 1932 FDR did not associate with Hoover's policies, despite immense pressure to do so, but only talked in general about his, and ran his "forgotten man" campaign. Not so bad seeming now as then, but the next shoes to drop will for sure be economic as well as financial. The present silence for sure will not last past next March!

GE: Why Buying on Weakness Is an Excellent Idea

What do you think of GE Capital and its continuing effects on the other half of the company?

As Mortgage Securities Disappear, What Will Replace Them? [Housing Tracker]

I heard some computer whizz was working on packaging mortgage insecurities for resale. Naming the process "insecuritization" was found to be a problem in focus groups, it was said. Infinitely preferable were names using "relief" type words though de-stressing mortgages sounded too much like more distress.

A Closer Look at the Dollar Rally

Yes, thank you for the analysis. An issue might be the source of the flows into the dollar, and the relation to what happened Friday. Is this perhaps US equity investment fleeing from emerging markets? There might be more headaches that come from the consequences of such reflows. De-leveraging, which hasn't really started after a year, goes global.

Home Prices in 20 Major Cities: You're OK If...

So we're about half-way through and heading back to 1998-2002 as mean reversion?

Troubling Aspects to the GSE Bailout Bill

Thank you for posting this information in the way you did. It seems, like the Resolution on Iraq which Congress voted for, to be an Enabling Act broad enough to permit anticipated and unanticipated further problems to be addressed without further recourse to Congress for approval. Perhaps the USG, through the shells of Fannie and Freddie will be taking in the mortgage portfolios of the banks which are too big and too interconnected to fail.

It about time someone in the tech world figured out how to digitally disintermediate the country from the mess made of its finances.

A Long-Term, Structural Solution to the Banking Crisis

Why do we have one? What is the financial system for? How well is it meeting its purposes? What should it be doing?

Should I Buy Fannie or Freddie Stock Today?

Depends whose money it is!

Housing: Barron's Calls a Bottom

Without investment in job creation and household income?
There's no support for housing prices till someone remembers how to create pay checks substantial enough to pay bills without borrowing. Sorry, he can have all the numbers he wants, he still needs to be able to think about what's right before he starts counting.

Fed to Ease Restrictions on Private Equity Investments in Banks? It's About Time

Are these regulations? Or are the Fedsters moving beyond the legal frame of their charter to encroach on the Congress's monopoly of obligating tax payers only through the discussion and passage of legislation? If the latter what legal guarantee do private investors have that Bernanke and the Fed Board will prevail? Their word? Is it really such a good idea, just because someone says its a good idea? Moral hazard isn't only incurred cleaning up messes, it is also incurred in the decisions made, and the process by which they are made, before the messes need to be cleaned up.

Are We Facing a New Wave of Sovereign Bond Defaults?

Thank you for these thoughts. The preservation of value is an interesting question. It might be interesting to compare the U.S. present circumstance with other Third World precedents. Would not the application of the medicine the US and international institutions insisted was necessary to restructure third world debtors be an option for the US's international lenders now? It might be, for example, that the current US situation could usefully be compared with Mexico in 1982 from the standpoint of capital flight, currency over-valuation, endebtedness. The ratios of values in Mexico before and after the devaluation and restructuring of 1982 might provide a better indicator of what's ahead than comparisons with the stag-flation of the 1970's when the US economy was very different than it is now.

Bond Insurer Break-Up: Beware Unintended Consequences

The NY govt probably just wants to try and separate what is arguably toxic, from what is secured against someone's taxes, even if those are real estate based. Don't they hold muni bonds as well as insure them? Wouldn't it be much cleaner if the revenues from healthy taxes were not used to provide transfusions to the toxic stuff? They might also want to do something with the structure before the CDO mess becomes a public issue like sub-primes did, don't you think? Looks like it might be a whole lot bigger and messier. Some tails get to be like that if they're not cleaned up often enough.