financial history

Watch the hour-long retrospective which aired tonight on PBS’s Frontline.  It should be very enlighteningregarding the seeds of the bubble and meltdown.  It examines who the players in the 1990s and 2000s were, what their attitude to…

This is a cross-post from an article I wrote at the finance site New Deal 2.0, a one-stop-shop for current news, sharp analysis and potential solutions of the country’s fiscal crisis. Edward linked to this in this morning's links, saying "I…

Remember when Paul Krugman asked aloud “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?” He had a very well-received answer.  But he left out something. The elephant in the room was debt.  No one seems to have been noticing. Below is a…

In my last post, I presented you with a bunch of data on debt levels broken down by sector of the economy (see “A brief look at the Asset-Based Economy at economic turns”).  I found it interesting that a secular pattern seemed to be at…

This morning I again wanted to challenge my somewhat bullish medium-term outlook but bearish longer-term view on the US economy – this time by looking at the data on debt. What follows is going to be a very numbers-heavy post.  So, I…

Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke told us when the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was launched that they were not concerned about the health of our banking system.  In fact, this was not the case. They were concerned about specific…

Marshall Auerback sent me a link to a recent Simon Johnson missive about Goldman Sachs. I had already seen and liked this article, but his e-mail prompted me to write this post. My question is: Why is Goldman a bank holding company?…

In light of recent comments made by both living former Federal Reserve Chairmen, I thought it appropriate to look back 22 years to the succession from Volcker to Greenspan.  What follows is a blurb from a New York Times article circa…

Marshall Auerback pointed out a statement from Dallas Fed Chief Richard Fisher today that is not getting a lot of attention despite its importance.  He said: I expect that when it comes time to tighten monetary policy, my…

I have been very interested in the concept of legal tender of late because of the revelation this summer that the State of California was issuing I.O.U.’s to honour its debts instead of paying in U.S. Dollars, which are legal tender and…