Monetary System

Marshall Auerback here. This is a cross-post from an article I wrote at the finance site New Deal 2.0, a one-stop-shop for current news, sharp analysis and potential solutions of the country’s fiscal crisis. We’ve said it before and…

This is just in from the FDIC (emphasis added below). It should make clear that the banking system is still weak: Credit quality declined sharply for loan commitments of $20 million or more held by multiple federally supervised…

As a follow-up to my post on debt and it’s exclusion as a subject of merit amongst several schools of economic thought, I wanted to bring a New York Times article from 1988 to your attention. This article by Peter Kilborn, a Washington,…

Let’s say I run a company. For the sake of argument, we’ll call it a shoe store in New York City. I am making $100,000 net per year now. But, I look around me and see huge opportunity for growth. So I go to my bank and ask for a loan to…

In the latest inexplicable move to extricate the U.S. banking system from crisis, the FDIC is reportedly close to asking the very banks it regulates for a loan to top up its balances. The plan is “strongly supported by bankers and their…

Last week, I highlighted some of the ideas of Australian economist Steve Keen in my post, “Steve Keen and the spectre of terminal debt.”  Keen is of the Minsky camp and he believes that an unsustainable debt bubble has build up in the…

Sheila Bair has run out of options to seize banks because the FDIC’s coffers are running dry.  Now she either needs to tap taxpayer money via a loan from the Treasury or she has to raise funds through a special assessment on banks, who…

I am astounded at how quickly we have returned to the pre-crisis days of yore. Credit spreads are down, the stock market is up, volatility is down, earnings are up and bonuses are up.  It looks like happy days are here again. But, I…

Everyone is running with his or her own “Lessons from Lehman” post as if we have actually learned anything from the financial crisis – and as if it is already over and behind us. Well, I have some lessons learned for you via Dharma Joint…

Below is a good video analysis by Jess Bravin of the Wall Street Journal on the BofA-Merrill Lynch saga.  Bravin discusses the recent rejection by Judge Jed Rakoff of the out-of-court settlement between the SEC and Bank of America…