2012

When David Stevens left his position in the Obama Administration in 2011 as the head of the Federal Housing Administration to go to head the Mortgage Bankers Association, the chief lobbyist for the industry he once regulated, I posted on…

Yves Smith has an interesting post out asking whether student loans are going the way of subprime, potentially triggering another financial crisis if the US goes into recession. I think it's a good question to ask in light of my last weekly…

Over the American thanksgiving holiday three years ago in 2009, the relatively small sovereign-linked debtor Dubai World announced it would suspend payments on its debt obligations. Dubai World was a state-owned conglomerate in the emirate…

Here's a very good video on MMT with Stephanie Kelton, the chair of the Economics department at the University of Missouri at Kansas City talking to Lauren Lyster of RT's Capital Account. As you know, despite my Austrian bias and my…

By Marc Chandler The Federal Reserve was as aggressively dovish as any one expected. It added to QE $45 bln a month in US Treasuries, keeping the $40 bln of month of MBS purchases. It also changed from time reference for guidance to use of…

Bloomberg News recently conducted a wide-ranging interview with Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and the headline comments that are lighting up the technology world point to Schmidt's belief that Google is "winning" the mobile platform "war"…

My thesis for the smartphone industry is that the industry will be increasingly driven by the conversion of price-sensitive buyers in developed and emerging markets from lesser phones or no phones to smartphones. The market for high-priced…

One lesson we should keep in mind as we recover in the aftermath of Sandy is that we are slow learners. Although the vulnerability of many of these communities is undeniable, we have resolved to rebuild the homes. That resolve will no doubt…

As you may know, I now use the sectoral balances approach very heavily in looking at economic forecasting. The crux of the sectoral balances is that, from an accounting perspective, every sector's deficit must be offset by an equal surplus…

Business Insider met with Goldman's Chief Economist Jan Hatzius and learned he is bullish on the US economy largely because he believes his Wynne Godley-inspired model of the US economy shows likely releveraging in the household sector. …