Credit Writedowns

The S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Indices for April 2009 were released today.  The Composite-10 and Composite-20 indices showed a 18.0% and 18.1% decline respectively, making the data less bad than in the previous month.  Nevertheless,…

On the same day that the worst economic growth numbers in the U.K. in 51 years, we also get some news that the British economy may be stabilising. Well, at least house prices seem to be stabilising as Nationwide reported a 0.9% increase in…

Here is more from Dylan Ratigan’s new show on MSNBC.  Arianna Huffington and Eliot Spitzer were guests.  They all have noticed that Barack Obama has spent an inordinate amount of political capital and money on the financial…

Dylan Ratigan, a former host on both Bloomberg Television and CNBC has a new gig over at CNBC.  Ratigan has been especially harsh in criticizing the financial services industry and its role in the recent global meltdown.  Below,…

Late last year, I predicted that China, as a major exporter to the West, would feel a huge impact from the meltdown in the global economy, taking it’s growth rate down to 2% (See Top ten predictions for the 2009 global economy). Forgetting…

Unfortunately I was out this weekend and did not post the 5 bank seizures by the FDIC on Friday.  They are below in the links. China's banks are an accident waiting to happen to every one of us - Ambrose Pritchard-Evans, Telegraph…

Bank of NY Mellon sees writedowns, 2009 profit: report - Reuters This is what I expect many banks to be saying later this quarter. Is Obama Edging Towards Bush-Like Indefinite Detention? - Michael Scherer, Swampland…

It seems like a long time off, but the Fed is going to eventually have to withdraw all of the excess liquidity it has created when the economy recovers.  However, doing so will prove tricky.  First, we have debt deflationary…

Here’s another $25 billion giveaway to AIG.  Notice that AIG gets the upside over $25 billion. Does this ever stop?  Bloomberg reports. American International Group Inc., the insurer bailed out by the U.S. government, agreed…

I am re-posting this February article because it is clear that many of the policy dilemmas Barack Obama is now facing on the economy were wholly predictable. In this post and another from January, I argued that it was better to have zero…