Moody’s bank downgrades, pain in Spain edition – FT Alphaville. 25 banks get downgrades. Santander gets negative watch. Was I too early on Santander or just plain wrong?
Lincoln National to Take Federal Bailout Funds DealBook. Is this getting any press? They are not a bank.
Marijuana Damages DNA And May Cause Cancer, New Test Reveals Science Daily
Banks face fresh $283bn writedowns FT
Extended Stay Hotels Seeks Chapter 11 WSJ. I tweeted this when the news came out. Here is the link to the story.
Hotel Creditors May Have an Extended Stay WSJ
The Good Soldier: Hillary Clinton As Secretary of State Daily Intel — New York Magazine. Good analysis of Hillary Clinton’s excellent performance to date.
Test awaits Obama this week on financial reforms Reuters
You Don’t Get a Vote! – James Kwak
Home Builders See a Bottom Housing Wire
Is This Bull Cyclical or Secular? WSJ. Of course, I think it is a cyclical bull aka bear market rally.
Six Flags: setting the record straight on bankruptcy Credit Writedowns
A conversation with Richard Posner on Charlie Rose Credit Writedowns
Antidote du Jour (hat tip Paul):
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The paper on cannibus damage to DNA involves the chemical acettalderhyde
"Acetaldehyde (systematically: ethanal) is an organic chemical compound with the formula CH3CHO or MeCHO. It is a flammable liquid. Acetaldehyde occurs naturally in ripe fruit, coffee, and bread, and is produced by plants as part of their normal metabolism. It is popularly known as a chemical that causes hangovers….
Acetaldehyde is an air pollutant resulting from combustion, such as automotive exhaust and tobacco smoke." Wikipedia.
The Science Digest article is half-truth propaganda. It suggests that this is a danger limited to Tobacco and marijuiana. When in fact any organic combustion including I suppose campfire marshmallows give off acetalderhyde
Edward,
it seems you were just plain wrong. Let's look at what happened in the last 15 months since you wrote that piece: the Lehman Bros' financial meltdown; most US and UK big banks were nationalised or heavily intervened by the respective governments; significant banks have failed and needed rescue in almost every European nation; and the world is in a deep recession.
Yet Spain is the Western European country with the best y-o-y (negative) growth; its banking system is intact, with most big banks having posted no quarterly loss; no significant bank has been nationalised nor rescued; and Santander, which has used the crisis to buy bankrupt banks in the US and the UK at firesale prices, is making a similar profit as in the good years.
Your comments (mostly insightful and well-informed) have both an anti-Spanish and anti-European bias, I'd say. Why so? Can't you read the signs of the times?
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/signs-of-the-times/
Diego,
No anti-Spanish bias any more than anti-US, Irish or British bias (these are the original 4 housing bubble markets). But, I agree, it looks like I was wrong on Santander.
Edward
One more thing Diego,
I have realized the Santander call was off for some time. Here's my mea culpa:
http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2008/12/my-best-and-worst-calls-of-2008-a-credit-crisis-retrospective.html
My best call here was in predicting that many more writedowns to come and that the financial sector and its credit writedowns would be at the center of this downturn. My favorite call was on HBOS and its exposure to loan losses. My worst call was on Santander, which I thought was going to take down a lot of writedowns. I got that 100% wrong
Cheers
Edward