First, let’s have a quick trip down memory lane. The financial crisis got going properly in the UK in August 2007, with the ABCP seize-up leading to the run on Northern Rock in September. Congdon illustrates how dependent banks had become on wholesale funding: At June 2007 UK banks’ cash deposits at the Bank of […]
Read more...From an interview of Noam Chomsky by Keane Bhatt, “Chomsky: ‘The Business Elites … Are Instinctive Marxists’” in TruthOut. The funny bit is I was reading this piece (per referral by reader May S) and found this section in it: KB: In characterizing the U.S. financial crisis, you say that “markets are inefficient … They […]
Read more...Testimony in a New Jersey bankruptcy court case provides proof of the scenario we’ve depicted on this blog since September, namely, that subprime originators, starting sometime in the 2004-2005 timeframe, if not earlier, stopped conveying note (the borrower IOU) to mortgage securitization trust as stipulated in the pooling and servicing agreement. Professor Adam Levitin in […]
Read more...Tiger summit aims to double numbers BBC What’s Really Wrong With the Smart Grid Lisa Margonelli, Atlantic (hat tip reader Crocodile Chuck) French ban X-ray scans for illegal immigrants as radiation makes them ‘too dangerous’ Daily Mail (hat tip reader May S) Long Live the Web Tim Berners-Lee, Scientific American (hat tip reader Lee, via […]
Read more...→ Washington’s Blog Ben Bernanke has said that the Fed is trying to promote inflation, increase lending, reduce unemployment, and stimulate the economy. However, the Fed has arguably – to some extent – been working against all of these goals. For example, as I reported in March, the Fed has been paying the big banks […]
Read more...The media has been so preoccupied with acute symptoms of the debt crisis – sliding home prices, foreclosure abuses, ongoing Euromarket bank/sovereign debt stress, ongoing battles over financial regulation implementation, unhappiness over the Fed’s QE2 – that lingering problems are not getting the attention they deserve. High on the list is the how the weak […]
Read more...I’ve taken a particular interest in GMAC because in the one consumer foreclosure case I ‘ve attended, back in May, I had the dubious pleasure of seeing a GMAC employee and an attorney for the local foreclosure mill, who was also put on the stand, perjure themselves. And this isn’t my interpretation; documentary evidence was […]
Read more...→ Washington’s Blog LSU professor and oil spill expert Ed Overton has been all over the news saying that fears of the BP oil spill were overblown. But as Raw Story reports, Overton has been a lead NOAA consultant for decades, and a fellow LSU professor calls him a “shill”: Overton’s prominent position as the […]
Read more...U.S. scanners present skin cancer risk: MDs AFP (hat tip reader May S). I must note this piece cites only one MD, but the flip side is that pilots, who will be screened far more frequently than most passengers, are not happy about the radiation risk posed by the scanners. Duke cancer researcher quits as […]
Read more...One of the many themes being used to cultivate class warfare in foreclosure-land is the idea that people who are losing their homes are getting an unfair break. Many of them have learned that banks are moving very slowly on foreclosures and so they stay put until the sheriff evicts them. One culprit is crowded […]
Read more...Yours truly has complained off and on over the years about “consulting” and “research” firms whose entire business model revolves around the procurement and sale of inside information. These companies solicit consultants, who in the vast majority of cases are employees of major corporations, to provide insight into what is going on at their employer’s […]
Read more...Some geographical and economic clarifications from politicians, officials and commentators: 1. Spain is not Greece – Elena Salgado, Spanish Finance Minister, ~February, 2010. 2. Portugal is not Greece – The Economist, 22nd April, 2010. 3. Greece is not Ireland – George Papaconstantinou, Greek Finance Minister, 8th November 2010. 4. Spain is neither Ireland nor Portugal […]
Read more...Senate panel approves website shut-down bill ITWorld Insurers Test Data Profiles to Identify Risky Clients Wall Street Journal. Consider: A life insurer might want to scrutinize an applicant who reports no family history of cancer, but indicates online an affinity with a cancer-research group, says Mike Fitzgerald, a Celent senior analyst. This looks like guilt […]
Read more...One of the annoying and persistent Big Lies of the financial crisis is that the rescues were a really good thing because they saved the world as we know it. That argument is dubious for a host of reasons: the world as we know it is the very same one that went off a cliff, […]
Read more...On Thursday, the housing subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee held hearings on robo signing, documentation, and servicing issues. This session wasa companion to the Senate Banking Committee hearings on the same topic earlier in the week. There were some notable differences between the two forums. The House group overall was less well prepared; […]
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