Credit Writedowns

This video from the Charlie Rose show should give one a fairly complete view of most of the relevant finance and political issues surrounding the AIG situation. (hat tip Calculated Risk) Participants include bank analyst Meredith Whitney…

While most people have their attention tuned to the spectacle over at AIG, financial institutions in Europe are having their own difficulties. In the last day, I have seen news stories of European banks looking for ways to raise capital in…

As I mentioned in my post, "TALF: A bailout if one reads the fine print" the TALF is not a program ONLY for U.S. institutions. It is a vehicle for re-starting the U.S. asset-backed securities credit markets. In fact, the first recipient…

This comes via the website The Agonist (Hat tip Scott).  I have bolded the important bits: So what are AIG’s arguments for making these bonus payments? All 450 employees of AIG in London, where the derivatives contracts were booked and…

Here are the main links. Others can be found in the news feed (also available via RSS). Enjoy. IMF poised to print billions of dollars in 'global quantitative easing' - Telegraph (hat tip Artur. Gold, anyone?) China blocks…

The AIG employees who are the subject of so much venom because they have received massive bonuses while their organizatio is being propped up by $170 billion in taxpayer money are not even in the United States. They are in London.

This is a post I wrote last week on naked capitalism. In any banking crisis, the central question always is: which financial institutions now operating are insolvent, how can we identify them and remove them from the system, and how can…

The foreign policy challenges facing the new Obama Administration have mounted significantly in recent days. On the back of civil unrest and trade sanctions in Mexico, a destabilizing power struggle in Pakistan, the latest news to hit in…

I plan to visit Mexico early next month as I do at least one or twice every year. This year I question what awaits me as evidence that Mexico's economy and civil order is imploding mount. The latest strike against Mexico comes in its now…

We have seen absoultely catastrophic losses at the world's Sovereign Wealth funds in the Middle East, Singapore, Norway, you name it. Add China to this list. China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange diversified its money out of…