Yves here. No one should be surprised that Bloomberg is reporting today that Goldman is aggressively lobbying for a Volcker Rule waiver for its role as a sponsor of and investors in “credit funds.”
By George Bailey, who has worked in senior compliance roles at a Big Firm You’ve Heard Of and is also a member of Occupy the SEC
Today is “Volcker Day” and Paul Volcker was on a tear.
Read more...North Carolina has posted an executive summary of the foreclosure settlement (hat tip Abigail Field), and it is a a troubling document. The first aspect is the very fact that an executive summary, rather than actual text of an agreement, is what is being released. And it’s not being released for the worst of reasons: the deal has not been finalized. We explained in an earlier post why this is completely outside the pale, and we’ll turn the mike over to Frederick Leatherman for a recap:
Read more...Dave Dayen pointed out how peculiar that the mortgage settlement propaganda website, www.nationalmortgagesettlement.com, is a .com and not a .gov. And it turns out the Department of Justice disavows its content (hat tip April Charney):
Read more...By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist and hedge fund manager
Pick your poison. In the words of Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, the choice facing Greece today in the wake of its deal with the so-called “Troika” (the ECB, IMF, and EU) is “to choose between difficult decisions and decisions even more difficult. We unfortunately have to choose between sacrifice and even greater sacrifices in incomparably more dearly.” Of course, Venizelos implied that failure to accept the latest offer by the Troika is the lesser of two sacrifices. And the markets appeared to agree, selling off on news that the deal struck between the two parties was coming unstuck after weeks of building up expectations of an imminent conclusion.
In our view, the market’s judgment is wrong: an outright default might ultimately prove the better tonic for both Greece and the euro zone.
Read more...You know it’s bad when banks are the most truthful guys in the room.
Read more...Check here to find your local station and broadcast time. Hope you can tune in!
Read more...Hope you don’t mind the spate of posts with my various media appearances on the mortgage settlement. This was my first time on Democracy Now and they do do their homework. A producer ran out to me when I was on deck to ask if the total deal was $25 or $26 billion. I said all the Administration messaging was $26 billion, but the numbers seemed to add up to more like $25 billion, they must be rounding up on the subtotals. He came back and said they couldn’t make it add up to $26 billion and so would report it as $25 billion.
Here’s the segment:
Read more...By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist and hedge fund manager. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives
Here’s the draft of the supposed agreement to “sort out” the Greek debt problem once and for all. According to Bloomberg, here are the essentials:
Read more...A little birdie sent me some settlement details. You can see how much little your state got.
As readers may know by now, 49 of 50 states have agreed to join the so-called mortgage settlement, with Oklahoma the lone refusenik. Although the fine points are still being hammered out, various news outlets (New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal) have details, with Dave Dayen’s overview at Firedoglake the best thus far.
Read more...By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist based in Dublin, Ireland
Read more...Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty and dies with chaos
– Will Durant
After the German-French council of ministers in Paris, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy gave a joint TV interview at the Elysée Palace, the official residence of the French president. Merkel berated François Hollande, Sarkozy’s top challenger in the upcoming presidential election. Then Sarkozy lashed out against him. Never before had a German chancellor campaigned so hard for a French president.
Read more...News stories in American Banker, the Wall Street Journal, and now Huffington Post all indicate that New York and California will join the so-called mortgage settlement deal. From Loren Berlin at Huffington Post:
Read more...The Administration, through the nominal head of the bank settlement negotiations, Iowa attorney general Tom Miller, has moved its final deadline for a deal yet again, this time to Thursday.
One event of the day was a non-event. New York AG Eric Schneiderman has scheduled a conference call to the media on the settlement for 6 PM, then postponed it indefinitely 10 minutes before the scheduled time. One can presume that whatever he had intended to say was rendered moot by events…but what events? The only thing one can infer is that he is presumably still negotiating. Per Reuters (hat tip Lambert):
Read more...By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist and hedge fund manager. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives
Another day andthe markets remain fixated on whether Greece comes to a “voluntary” arrangement with its creditors. The key word is“voluntary” because the myth of “voluntary compliance has to be sustained so that those deadly credit default swaps avoid being triggered.
But let’s face it: Greece is a pimple. If the rest of the euro zone could cut itlose with a minimum of systemic risk, Athens would have long gone the way of Troy. The real issue is whether the credit default swaps trigger such a huge mess with the counterparties that it creates renewed systemic stress which more than offsets the benefits to the holders of the CDSs.
The more interesting question is: suppose Greece finally does get a deal?
Read more...