Credit Writedowns

The VIX index hit a multi-year low today (it went below 14.1 this morning).

Here's another Tech Ticker segment on the state of the economy. Noted economic bear Gary Shilling believes the US is in recession or will be entering one shortly. His view is that wages have not grown robustly enough to warrant the level of…

Here's a good video from the Tech Ticker guys showing us that the opaque nature of asset-backed securities is catching up with Wall Street again. This is now becoming a problem in the credit card industry.

I'm back from vacation! The links are light today so let me give you an added few tidbits from this week's Gold member post on the euro zone.

The culture of fraud in economics is a severe problem, and Harvard is a “hot spot” of that culture.

In the German press, there have been a number of stories recently that indicate that the German government will not commit any more money to bailouts in the euro zone. Specifically, the reports of greatest interest have to do with Germany's…

In the video below, Bill Black argues that the Obama Administration, following in its tradition of not bringing forward criminal prosecutions, decided not to prosecute Goldman Sachs. Bethany McLean argues the other side. The host, Maria…

Now, to the hearing that preceded the Senate confirmation vote on August 11, 1987

Simply cutting the deficit back and cleaning up bank balance sheets won’t get the economy back to growth. Indeed this habit of continually getting behind the curve, and trying vainly now that the economy is spiralling almost out of control…

The headline story here points out very clearly why Japan has two lost decades behind it. The country tries to gin up growth via fiscal and monetary stimulus when it lapses into recession. A gaping hole opens up in the government's books.…