Archive for the 'Economy' Category
U.S. Home Price Drops at Record Pace in December
February 24th, 2009Via: Reuters: Prices of U.S. single-family homes plunged 18.5 percent in December from a year earlier as the monthly pace accelerated, according to a Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index on Tuesday. The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas fell 2.5 percent in December from November, compared with a 2.3 percent decline in […]
Suburban Gold Parties
February 24th, 2009WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. Read to the end… I don’t know what to make of that. Is this the public participation phase? Or not? Did those guys really sell $5 million worth of gold in one day? Can that possibly be true? I hope people […]
China to Heed Clinton’s Call on Buying U.S. Bonds
February 23rd, 2009The Mexican standoff continues. Or, put another way… Keep the Ponzi scheme going, or you’ll lose what you put in already. Via: AFP: China has little choice but to follow Hillary Clinton’s call and continue buying US Treasuries, as reversing course would lead to the value of its investments plunging, economists said Monday. While in […]
SEC Probed Stanford Companies; Red Flags Abounded
February 23rd, 2009Via: AP: For years, there were red flags — so many they could have massed into a crimson blanket. As with the Bernard Madoff case, the scandal surrounding billionaire R. Allen Stanford now seems clear and obvious in hindsight. Yet Stanford managed to run his alleged scheme even while the Securities and Exchange Commission and […]
Brown: World Needs ‘Global New Deal’
February 23rd, 2009Tell me another one, Gordon. Via: CNN: The world needs a “global New Deal” to haul it out of the economic crisis it faces, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom said Sunday. “We need a global New Deal — a grand bargain between the countries and continents of this world — so that […]
When Consumers Cut Back: A Lesson from Japan
February 23rd, 2009See what I mean about frugality as a mode of warfare? Via: IHT: As recession-wary Americans adapt to a new frugality, Japan offers a peek at how thrift can take lasting hold of a consumer society, to disastrous effect. The economic malaise that plagued Japan from the 1990s until the early 2000s brought stunted wages […]
Taxpayers Could Own Up to 40% of Citi’s Common Stock, Diluting Value of Shares
February 23rd, 2009But before you read about that, here’s the setup: Would CNBC Let Gasparino Say This On-Air? Earlier this year, high-flying hedge fund Paulson & Co. retained [former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan] for its “advisory board.” The firm is a noted “short seller” of banks and financial stocks – meaning it makes money when these […]
Roubini: The Banks That Were Too Big to Fail Are Now Even Bigger to Fail; He Sees Nationalization and Breakups Ahead
February 23rd, 2009What does this mean for the dollar? Two economics professors discuss what would be the most radical financial policy in the U.S. in the last century and the fate of the dollar doesn’t come up once? All of this bailout nonsense seems to have been a series of shell games. The pea they’re trying to […]
Financial Crises And Public Finances: Where Is The Greatest Risk?
February 22nd, 2009Does the band play on for U.S. Treasuries? This looks like a beauty pageant in a leper colony. Via: BCA Research: Our fixed income team has just published a Special Report comparing 22 developed government debt in the face of the current financial crisis. The Special Report reviewed the vulnerability of these markets to rating […]
U.S. Bank Stress Tests to Show Capital Needs
February 22nd, 2009Via: Reuters: U.S. financial regulators will soon launch a series of “stress tests” to determine which of the largest U.S. banks should get bigger capital cushions in case of a deeper recession, a person familiar with Obama administration plans said on Saturday. The person, speaking on condition of anonymity, said if institutions were found to […]
