Political Economy

This comes from Win Thin, a senior currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman: Mexico President Calderon is now saying that Mexico stands ready to take a $30-40 bln IMF credit line. This was a surprise to us, and we view this as a…

This clip is very much in line with my thinking from a previous post.

I like the fact that President Obama has drawn a line in the sand and signaled that no more funds will be given to U.S. automakers without their presenting a viable long-term plan for restructuring. Ultimately, the automakers cannot…

In 2 hours I will be on BBC World News Today talking about the recent government actions involving the auto industry. Afterwards, I will have more to say about this here. In the meantime, here is what Barack Obama had to say.

Below is the video clip of U.S. Treasury Secretary defending his bailout plan which the likes of Paul Krugman have called "a plan to rearrange the deck chairs and hope that that keeps us from hitting the iceberg." The investors'…

This video from yesterday's Council on Foreign Relations symposium gives Treasury Seretary Tim Geithner a chance to explain why he has constructed his bailout plan in the way he has. Rather than editorialize the video, I will provide it…

The political realities of solving a financial crisis have often meant circumventing legislative approval to meet the exigencies of a particular situation.  This was certainly the case in 1995 during the so-called Tequila Crisis in Mexico.…

Story from Investor's Business Daily: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called for "new rules of the game" on Thursday, including a systemic-risk regulator, stronger capital cushions for banks, and more disclosure from hedge funds.…

I have the same misgivings about the Public Private Partnership Investment Program that Paul Krugman does. However, I still think it could work in conjunction with all of the other stimulus being applied (at least in inducing a cyclical…

This is yet another semi-positive post about the Geithner plan. To reiterate, I think the plan is inadequate because it assumes illiquidity instead of insolvency and is a huge gift to the financial sector. But, that does not mean it will…