Double Whammy: Implicit Subsidies and the Great Financial Crisis
Follow the subsidies, and you will understand why we had the crisis and why not enough has been done to prevent a recurrence.
Read more...Category Archives: Federal Reserve
Jumping the Abyss: Marriner S. Eccles and the New Deal, 1933-1940
An in-depth look at Marriner Eccles’ ideas and policies, and how well they have withstood the test of time.
Read more...Victorian Central Banks and the Myth of Independence
Central banks have not always been independent, inflation targeting bodies, and to treat them as such is to obscure their complex histories and alternative institutional constellations.
Read more...Pigs Want To Feed at the Trough Again: Bernanke, Geithner and Paulson Use Crisis Anniversary to Ask for More Bailout Powers
The chief architects of the exercise in looting otherwise known as the post-crisis rescues are back promoting more of the same.
Read more...Marshall Auerback: Central Bankers as ‘Dealers of Last Resort’
In their 21st-century role as counterparty/dealer/insurer of last resort, central bankers must not simply use their balance sheets indiscriminately to provide a liquidity backstop during the downturns. They must embrace this counterparty role as an umpire, rather than an enabler.
Read more...Bill Black: Pre-Crisis “4506-T Studies” Showed Massive Fraud in Liar’s Loans; Fed Ignored Warning, DoJ Refused to Target Implicated Banksters
Yet another proof that the authorities were given evidence of widespread mortgage fraud before the crisis and chose to do nothing about it.
Read more...The Explicable Mystery of the National Debt
Why US Treasury bond issuance and Federal deficits are functionally not debt at all.
Read more...Bill Black: Mankiw Whiffs on “Learning the Right Lessons from the Financial Crisis”
Bill Black debunks a book that tries to relitigate the crisis by denying that Lehman was insolvent.
Read more...10 Down-to-Earth Things Powell Said about Cryptocurrencies
The Fed is perfectly content to have cryptocurrencies be the SEC’s problem.
Read more...Marshall Auerback: How Plan to Replace LIBOR Will Cement Fed’s Role as Global Central Banker
How proposals to replace LIBOR will strengthen the Fed’s position in global markets.
Read more...Michael Hudson: Argentina Gets Biggest IMF Loan in History
Leftout podcast of The Hudson Report, with Michael Hudson, discussing the award to Argentina of the biggest loan in the IMF’s history (includes transcript).
Read more...As the Yield Curve Flattens, Threatens to Invert, the Fed Discards it as Recession Indicator
This Fed is getting seriously hawkish: It revealed that instead of thinking about backing off rate hikes, it’s replacing the yield curve.
Read more...Bill Black: Fed Lets Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley Off Hook, Investors Profit Billions
Bill Black discusses how even though Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley failed their recent stress tests to determine whether these banks can weather a financial crisis, the Fed allowed them to pay billions in dividends and stock buybacks to investors.
Read more...Richard Murphy: The Debate on the Proper Role of the Bank of England, Continued
A discussion about the Bank of England raises questions about the role of central banks generally.
Read more...Wolf Richter: Riskiest Junk Bonds Completely Blow Off the Fed, Face “Sudden” Reckoning
Normally risky credits like junk bonds are the first to react when the Fed starts tightening. But we are not in normal times.
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