Credit Writedowns

On the back of a decent quarter at JPMorgan Chase, CEO Jamie Dimon has signalled his desire to repay government money as quickly as possible and remove the strings attached to that money.  Dimon has often said that JPMorgan Chase did not…

Jobless claims in the U.S. fell to a three month low of 610,000 on a seasonally-adjusted basis in another clear sign that fewer people are filing for jobless claims than early in the year.  Nevertheless, 600,000 more filed for claims this…

I am sure you have seen the catastrophic financial results of Swiss bank UBS released this week. I have been saying for quite some time that UBS is too big to fail, but also too big to bail for tiny Switzerland. In my view, the recent…

Jim Grant is definitely not in the deflation camp. He believes a robust policy response and enormous expansion in the Fed balance sheet is storing up monster inflationary forces which could take holding a recovery. As a result, he is…

This is another post I originally ran on Naked Capitalism last month. As you know, I have turned more positive about the potential for a cyclical economic recovery. However, I am unchanged regarding much of the sentiment expressed in this…

This is a post I originally posted over at Yves Smith's site, Naked Capitalism, in April 2008. My intent here is not to malign Obama, Roosevelt or Hoover or make facile comparison but to identify important differences between the economic…

The first link should be a reminder of how powerful the downtrend has been. Also, regarding the inventory purge now ongoing, inventories do not even actually have to be rebuilt to get a statistical up-move going forward, they have to be…

I am in London right now and through next Monday, I will also be on European time, so expect posts earlier than usual. Also, I will be in transit for the rest of the day today. So posting will be light or non-existent. I'l be back soon.…

One of my favorite books is "The Power Broker," a book for which Robert Caro won a Pulitzer Prize. It documents the life and times of master builder Robert Moses, who shaped New York City and American and world city planning for decades.…

John Hussman has a nice piece out named "Green Shoots over Thin Ice. (hat tip Scott)" Below is the core of his argument regarding the recent rally in stocks and the free gift to bondholders. I have bolded parts of the original to add…