Credit Writedowns

When the housing mania was in full bloom, many first-time home buyers were understandably panicked about being locked out of home ownership and missing the boat to get onto the property ladder. This was the case in both the UK and in the…

I was recently called out on missing the details of the FDIC's list of 117 'problem' banks. In a post on the OTS' agreement for regulatory supervision of Washington Mutual, I incorrectly stated that NCC was on that list and inferred that…

The post-mortems on Fannie and Freddie are flying in. It seems like it is almost non-stop Fannie and Freddie. Let me add to those voices with a bit of a twist: the bailout of Fannie and Freddie was as much a political move as it was a…

The Economist, like many other Libertarian-minded publications and individuals, has soured on John McCain. One week ago their cover page story was "Bring back the real McCain" and this past week their storyline on McCain was that the man…

After an amazing day to the upside as a result of the bailout of Frannie, we have to return to the ho-hum of reality. But, I still have a decent number of reactions to and articles about Frannie in my links. Personally, I don't like the…

You have probably heard by now that Washington Mutual ousted its embattled CEO Kerry Kilinger and replaced him with former Sovereign Bancorp CFO Alan Fishman. But, what you have not heard is that WaMu has signed an agreement with the…

The finance and investing website Money Morning has a very provocative piece om Jim Rogers today. Rogers, who has been railing against the bailout of Fannie and Freddie for some time, thinks the Treasury and Federal Reserve will fail in…

Today, David Wighton over at the Times Online referenced U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's quip that the U.S. Government had a bazooka ready to us in the case of the Frannie and Freddie Nightmare on Wall Street in saying:Helping to…

While everybody's focused on the 'good' news about the Fannie-Freddie bailout and they are partying like it's 1999, it might be a good time to slip in that bad news you were going to announce next week. Let's see if any company is crafty…

Apparently, the answer is yes. Thirteen "major" dealers of credit-default swaps agreed "unanimously" that the rescue constitutes a credit event triggering payment or delivery of the companies' bonds, the International Swaps and Derivatives…