crisis

Here's a good little measure to see how far we've fallen: Just more than 1 year ago Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) paid $100bn for ABN Amro (80% cash). For this amount, RBS could buy:

The Treasury Department is considering a plan to halt the slide in home prices that would lower mortgage rates using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The plan could reduce rates for newly issued loans to as low as 4.5%. Slowly, but surely, the…

One feature that is peculiar to the present downturn is the accumulation of reserves at the U.S. Federal Reserve. I imagine it is no different at other central banks, though I have not seen the data. Let me tell you what this reserve…

I don’t understand the lack of imagination in DC. All the politicians have to do is tell the banks to lower their variable rate mortgage loans on the books to 4% right now, today or else and it is like $600-$750 billion of stimulus. With…

Japan’s policy makers generally procrastinated considerably in terms of implementing any kind of stimulative measures, as well as prematurely reversing the benign impact of policies which had some earlier success. In terms of monetary…

Last night, in an e-mail Yves Smith of naked capitalism pointed out an Op-Ed piece by Meredith Whitney which ran in the Financial Times yesterday. It was a fairly somber and downbeat assessment from an analyst who has proved right on the…

Recently, I have written quite a few posts demonstrating the U.S. Federal Reserve has a ballooning balance sheet as it increases its purchases of assets at an unprecedented clip. In fact, that balance sheet had $800 billion in assets just…

Back on November 7th, I posted a story on how Bloomberg News was compelled to sue the Federal Reserve under the Freedom of Information Act in order to find out what type of assets the Federal Reserve was accepting as collateral for loans to…

When a bank with $2.2 trillion in assets is saved from potential ruin, it is big news. So, as you can imagine, every one and his brother has a take on what went wrong at Citigroup and whether the solution to 'fix' Citi was the right one.…

I have come down on the side of sweeping change when it comes to the banking system in the United States. Basically, I fear a further downward spiral due to the fear and panic that the banking crisis has unleashed. In my view, this…