Credit Writedowns

After the arrest of suspects based in Colorado and New York in an alleged 'varsity level’ terrorist plot, the spectre of terrorism in the United States has re-emerged as an issue, one that also has economic overtones because of the…

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…

Google This: 5 Reasons to Switch to Bing "Here we’ll break down 5 awesome Bing-specific features that are really growing on us. From insightful information to help us better plan our trips to cashback on purchases, and a visually…

Bloomberg News editor-in-chief Matt Winkler wrote an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday explaining why he is after the Federal Reserve to come clean about it’s secret lending program during the height of the financial crisis.…

FT Alphaville - Is all well at Wells Fargo? Wells Fargo is starting to pay for its tight-lipped limited disclosure policy. From Bear to Bull: James Grant on Recession and Recovery - WSJ.com I don't agree with Grant , but here it is.…

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…

The following post appeared on Wednesday at Rick Bookstaber’s new blog. Bookstaber is a market veteran who has long and storied history of achievement. He worked at Bridgewater Associates, ran the Quantitative Equity Fund at FrontPoint…

Following up on my “Sell equities” post, I want to highlight a factoid from today’s David Rosenberg’s Breakfast with Dave distribution. Never before has the S&P 500 rallied 60% from a low in such a short time frame as six months. And…

Back in April I told you I anticipated an uptick in GDP in part because of changes in inventories - massive change in the inventories. At the time, I thought I was going out on a limb by suggesting we could see positive GDP numbers in Q3…

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…