October 2009

In August, the Kansas Supreme Court issued a ruling against a mortgage tracking service which may prove very costly to banks in foreclosure, leading to massive writedowns. It could be a life saver for many trapped in the foreclosure…

For the latest week’s data for jobless claims, all you need to know is that the 4-week average barely budged and remains just above the 530,000 mark, consistent with a loss of 200,000 jobs. Clearly employment continues to lag at this point…

Obama's approval rating back to 50 - POLITICO.com This is tied for the lowest yet. Calomiris: Maybe He Slept Through 2008 -- Seeking Alpha Debunkng certain economies of scale arguments for TBTF Volcker Has Obamas Ear, but Not on…

In January, Ben Bernanke gave a very important speech at the London School of Economics where he laid out the Federal Reserve’s strategy in fighting the forces of deflation and market illiquidity (see post with videos here).  His was a…

If our response focuses only on the symptoms rather than the underlying causes of the crisis, then we shall bequeath to future generations a serious risk of another crisis even worse than the one we have experienced. -Mervyn King,…

You are a teacher at a local primary school. Each school day you and some of your colleagues watch over the children at the school playground to make sure all of the children follow the rules and keep their hands to themselves. Your role is…

Watch the hour-long retrospective which aired tonight on PBS’s Frontline.  It should be very enlighteningregarding the seeds of the bubble and meltdown.  It examines who the players in the 1990s and 2000s were, what their attitude to…

Jim the Realtor is back with a bunch of foreclosures, REOs and short sales on the market in North County San Diego.  Some of these places look pretty nice.  In this particular video, the property is in Carmel Valley and on the…

I have actually been on Twitter for some time now. But I wanted to update all of you with some social networking features the site now has and ways you can get more out of the content. Today, I will just talk about Twitter. Twitter I…

Back in March when the US Government felt compelled to bail out out Citigroup, Tracy Alloway over at FT Alphaville noticed a curious thing – Citigroup had effectively been nationalized. No, they were not seized by government, but Citi was…