Category Archives: Credit markets

Geithner Ghostwriter Mike Grunwald Tries to Shift Financial Crisis Narrative Away From The Big Short

It’s sad that you have to be something of a detective to decipher what passes for content at most major American news outlets. In the case of Michael Grunwald, however, we have a decent set of indicators about the normally hidden agenda. The Politico writer worked with Tim Geithner on his memoir. In fact, I believe he has said publicly that he didn’t know a lot about finance before meeting Geithner. So when Grunwald decides to leap into anything involving this topic, we can assume the end result is not altogether different than what it would look like if Geithner wrote it with his own byline.

The latest example is a nominal review of The Big Short, which is not really a review. It’s an attempt to steer the narrative of what happened, in the financial crisis and its aftermath, to territory that comforts elites.

Money and Banking – Part 2

How the Fed balance sheet works and why what we, the public, consider to be money is a debt of the Federal Reserve.

Bond Investors Get Skittish as Record Wave of Acquisitions Push to Close Financings

Standard & Poors warns of the worst drop in the “net outlook bias” for bond investors since the financial crisis.

Why Larry Summers is Wrong and Bernie Sanders is Right on Glass Steagall

Larry Summers, acting as a proxy for Team Clinton, attacked Sanders’ reform proposals, particularly the an updated Glass Steagall. Her’s why Summers is wrong.

2016: Oil Limits and the End of the Debt Supercycle

How tight linkages among phenomena, such as oil and commodity prices, and flagging non-elite wages, are about to cause substantial economic disruption.

China’s Contradictory Aims, Greater International Role Versus Domestic Economic Control, HIt Breaking Point

China appears to be in denial that it can’t have more open financial markets and maintain the same degree of control over the economy that it once enjoyed.

Deflation Denialism: No, Chancellor, 0.5% Inflation is Not “Welcome News”

What is deflation? What has caused inflation to fall? And why is there no such thing as ‘good deflation’?

Puerto Rico Defaults a Second Time; Claims of “Scheming” Designed to Crush Island Citizens

Puerto Rico fails to pay $37.3 million in bonds due today. While investors and analysts call it a bluff, the stakes are quite real.

Ilargi: 2016 Is An Easy Year To Predict

Deflation will become an even more powerful and destructive force in 2016.

Randy Wray: Debt-Free Money and Banana Republics, Part II

More discussion of the problems with the “debt-free money” construct, to the extent that it can even be called a construct.

Michael Hudson: The IMF Changes its Rules to Isolate China and Russia

How the West is deploying the IMF to fight the nightmare scenario of US geopolitical strategists: foreign economic independence from the US.

The Fed’s New “Operation Twist”: Twisted Logic for Bank Profits at the Expense of the Real Economy

How did Janet Yellen and the Federal Reserve justify their rate increase now, despite strong signs that there is little economic basis for doing so?

Call this an exercise in twisted logic, plain and simple.

The Continuing Fight Over Fannie and Freddie, and the Real Problem of US Mortgages

How understanding the history of Fannie and Freddie, as well as how unnatural US mortgages are, helps explain why the fight over the future of the GSEs continues.

Debunking “The Big Short”: How Michael Lewis Turned the Real Villains of the Crisis into Heroes

How Michael Lewis’ The Big Short, whether for profit or by accident, has denied the public the truth about what really causes the crisis.

Even Bank Supporters Arguing for Restoration of Glass Steagall

John Dizard, who perhaps by virtue of being one of the Financial Times’ most original and insightful columnists, is relegated to its weekend “Wealth” section, has written a particularly important pair of articles. Note that Dizard’s ambit is not policy wonkery but apt and often cynical observations about behavior and trading patterns in less visible […]