Hhm, is there any use of data that won’t in the end interest Google? The idea of using price information on websites as a way of developing an inflation index is clever, but I wonder how they will deal with the issues that bedevil statisticians, like discounting (I can tell a gym in my area […]
Read more...The Irish authorities priced the third and apparently final batch of bad loans to be transferred from maimed Irish banks into NAMA, in exchange for some nice, clean, heavily haircut NAMA bonds. Since that announcement, ten days ago, Irish bond yields have dropped a tiny bit (20bps) from their all time highs at the beginning […]
Read more...Lender Processing Services, which provides “technology” services to servicers and foreclosure mills, is under an escalating legal assault. Although media attention has focused on its role as a generator of fabricated documents for servicers and mortgage trusts, it can probably shift the liability for those documents onto the parties that used them as part of […]
Read more...I should have expected this, Team Obama is so predictably bank friendly that it was inconceivable that the Administration would ever decide against them on anything other than the occasional sop to maintain plausible deniability. But this morning’s news stories reveal the officialdom isn’t even bothering to keep up appearances. First, from Politico writer Ben […]
Read more...Index shows global hunger growing BBC Picture: unknown carnivore discovered in Madagascar lake Wild Madagascar Jump in whale deaths blamed on krill, ship traffic PhysOrg County home sale record Press Democrat (hat tip reader Louis S) Sandy Weill and his wife spend ill gotten gains $31 million on Sonoma estate. How Hank Paulson’s inaction helped […]
Read more...A DC contact warned me last week that the banks were readying a massive pushback on the foreclosure crisis. It went into full swing over the weekend. Obama, admittedly through his proxy, David Axelrod, threw his weight in behind the banks on Face The Nation: Q: I guess the first question I would have is […]
Read more...Readers may argue I’m reading more of a bank PR role in a page one Wall Street Journal story than is warranted. However, even the Columbia Journalism Review took notice of the Journal’s scanty reporting on the foreclosure crisis, a mounting series of problems that is deservedly damaging to the banking industry’s image and bottom […]
Read more...The fact that an IMF meeting ended with the participants unable to feign a narrowing of differences on the currency front is further evidence that positions are hardening. And let us put none too fine a point on this: the currency row is simply an acceptable way to fight over imbalanced trade patterns. As we […]
Read more...Yves here. If nothing else, be sure to read the section on the Money Honey book. By Satyajit Das, a risk consultant and author of Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives – Revised Edition (2010, FT-Prentice Hall). Michael Hirsh (2010) Capital Offense: How Washington’s Wise Men Turned America’s […]
Read more...Your humble blogger is busy on another project. Not sure it will come to fruition; will probably take a good chunk of next week to see, and if it is viable, the crunch will probably extend into early the week following. As a result, my own posts for the next few days to full week […]
Read more...This post first appeared on May 9, 2008 The question above may seem foolish. Oil has just passed $124 a barrel despite improvement in the dollar. Commodities prices are moving less in lockstep than before (gold and wheat in particular have backed off significantly from their highs) suggesting that buying is not the result of […]
Read more...If you are one of those readers who only looks at posts, you are missing out on half the value of Naked Capitalism, since we have a lively and (for the most part) civil and intelligent group of commentators. Having said that, I try to be as non-interventionist as possible, but as I have also […]
Read more...Can the oceans be cleared of floating plastic rubbish? BBC American People Hire High-Powered Lobbyist To Push Interests In Congress The Onion Groin stretches: Marks & Spencer makes men ‘2 sizes bigger’ Guardian You Might Be A Racist If… FireDogLake It is time for Obama to switch from hope to fear Edward Luce, Financial Times […]
Read more...As more and more problems with foreclosures and borrower horror stories are coming to light, it isn’t hard to notice that banks are still gamely sticking with the pitch that the failings are technical and procedural even as the breadth of their response and the official reaction says otherwise. Suspending all foreclosures in the US, […]
Read more...The latest Versus econoparody: And since this is a Friday night, let me give you a couple of personal faves. This one from O Lucky Man! is similar philosophically but very different stylistically. This Lindsay Anderson film (with Malcolm McDowell) has the interesting device of treating the band as a Greek chorus. During the picture, […]
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