Credit Writedowns

Markets were disappointed by today’s unemployment data because they reveal how difficult it has been for the employment situation to improve in a meaningful way. The employment market is improving, just not as much as one would hope. Below…

The forecast was for 10.1% unemployment and a gain of +15,000 jobs according to Market Watch, but 10.0% unemployment and a flat non-farm payroll number according to Bloomberg. As a reminder, ADP reported the private sector shed 84,000 jobs,…

In handwriting: Note that there should be no discussion or suggestion that AIG and the NY Fed are asking to structure anything else at this point. It will be enlightening to hear him explain what this statement means. See…

Below are the links for stories through this morning. I am still playing catch-up as I had some server issues earlier in the day.  If I see anything significant later, I may do another links post in the evening. As usual, many more…

Unadjusted jobless claims after the holiday season are always monstrous because of seasonality. Last week 645,571 people filed initial claims for unemployment insurance in the United States.  That is down from the 731,958 who filed at…

Damaging e-mails have revealed that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged AIG to withhold crucial information about the deterioration of its financial condition in the lead up to its demise.  This will put further political…

Below are the most important links.  As usual, many more are available at the news feed (also available as an RSS feed). Going forward, the links post will contain fewer (more high-quality?) links, with the rest in the news feed.…

The latest piece of big news in the sovereign debt crisis comes, remarkably, from Iceland. The country collapsed into depression after its experiment as an open economy with a large banking sector went pear shaped. After a debt-fuelled…

For those of you who want specifics. Kleptocracy as defined in Wikipedia: Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, from Greek kleptes (thieve) and kratos (rule), is a term applied to a government that takes advantage of…

I want to talk about the drubbing the Democrats are going to take in this year’s elections and what it means, if anything.  As a sort of pre-amble, I will lead into this with some thoughts on tax cut propaganda and today’s piece by the…