Author Archives: George Washington

→ Washington’s Blog Ben Bernanke, William Dudley and Donald L Kohn are on the Fed’s Open Market Committee (FOMC). They are also on the board of directors of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) – often called the “central banks’ central bank”. And Kohn is an alternate director for BIS. Alan Greenspan, of course, was […]

→ Washington’s Blog Iceland has approximately the 101st biggest economy in the world. Dubai is also tiny. Greece is somewhat bigger, with the 27th biggest economy. When Iceland, Dubai and Greece tanked, that was horrible … but not catastrophic. Portugal – the 37th biggest economy – may be next. It would be horrible if Portugal […]

→ Washington’s Blog Preface:  I hesitated in posting on this subject, as I thought it might be too “radical”. But after reading what economists Steve Keen, Michael Hudson and Murray Rothbard said about debt repudiation, I decided to post it. This essay rounds up arguments for debt repudiation, because that side is rarely heard. But […]

→ Washington’s Blog As I have repeatedly pointed out, the economy cannot stabilize unless the fraud which led to the crisis (see this, this, this and this) is openly discussed. As Shahien Nasiripour notes today today, Alan Greenspan didn’t think regulators should even pay any attention to fraud: He didn’t believe that fraud was something […]

→ Washington’s Blog In a new report, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) – often called the “central banks’ central bank” – points out that bond investors are not as smart as they think, that Western debt is much higher than officially reported (since contingent liabilities and pension debts are excluded from official numbers), and […]

→ Washington’s Blog As I wrote Monday: In really bad times, people who are evicted from their houses will not rent. Instead, they will move in with friends or family for some time. As the Wall Street Journal explained last October: Driving the change [i.e. large numbers of rental vacancies and lower rents] is the […]

→ Washington’s Blog Virtually all independent financial experts are demanding that the too big to fail banks be broken up, including: Nobel prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz Nobel prize-winning economist, Ed Prescott Former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, and Dean and professor of finance […]

→ Washington’s Blog Preface: Rental prices are important not only for renters and apartment owners, homeowners and the building industry, but also because they greatly influence the consumer price index (see this and this). As the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco noted today: Part of the drop in measured core inflation is undoubtedly due […]

→ Washington’s Blog Regulators like the Fed and SEC have said they didn’t know about Lehman’s use of Repo 105s to hide its mountain of debt. But in a must-read New York Times Op-Ed, law school professors Susan P. Koniak, George M. Cohen, David A. Dana, and Thomas Ross point out: Our bank regulators were […]

→ Washington’s Blog Harold Bradley – who oversees almost $2 billion in assets as chief investment officer at the Kauffman Foundation – told the Reuters Global Exchanges and Trading Summit in New York that a cabal is preventing swap derivatives from being forced onto clearing exchanges: There is no incentive from the moneyed interests in […]

→ Washington’s Blog Tim Geithner told the Today Show that: It’s “deeply unfair” that some financial institutions that got taxpayer-paid bailouts are emerging in better shape from the recession than millions of ordinary Americans. Geithner also argued that President Barack Obama had no choice when confronted with a financial crisis. “As the president has said, […]

→ Washington’s Blog On March 3rd, Richard Fisher – President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas – told the Council on Foreign Relations: A truly effective restructuring of our regulatory regime will have to neutralize what I consider to be the greatest threat to our financial system’s stability—the so-called too-big-to-fail, or TBTF, banks. In […]

→ Washington’s Blog (see blog for embedded videos – I can’t figure out how to embed here). Greenspan’s big defense is that the financial crisis was caused by a “once-in-a-century” event. Forget about the fact that the “once-in-a-century event” couldn’t have happened if Greenspan’s Fed hadn’t: Turned its cheek and allowed massive fraud Acted as […]

→ Washington’s Blog. Bill Gross is recommending that investors buy the debt of low-deficit countries. Via Business Week: As Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Gross, manager of the world’s biggest bond fund, said yesterday in an interview with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Radio that [U.S.] “bonds have seen their best days.” Pimco, which announced in December […]

→ Washington’s Blog. Thomas M. Hoenig – president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and the current longest-serving regional Fed chief – said in a speech at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce summit in Washington: During the recent financial crisis, losses quickly depleted the capital of these large, over-leveraged companies. As expected, these […]