money

As Hank Paulson looks to push through his Economic Patriot Act, it bears remembering that just a few months ago he saw Covered Bonds as a potential solution to U.S. problems with declining home prices. They are not the solution. This…

Further proof that the credit markets are on the brink of systemic collapse is the fact that the widely followed risk spread Libor-OIS is at a record high. In the year before August 2007 when the credit crisis began, this spread averaged 8…

Whenever I wade into a new topic like digital photography, gardening or what have you, I visit the local bookstore and get a "For Dummies" book to guide me. I figure that it's the best way to get up-to-speed quickly without…

I named my blog "Credit Writedowns" because I anticipated an historic wave of credit writedowns in the global banking system which would lead to a wave of deleveraging, systemic risk, and bank failures -- in short, a massive financial and…

FT Alphaville has two posts today that mirror my view on the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. They basically say it was a huge mistake to let Lehman fail. Lehman was, in fact, too big to fail and the blow up in the markets since its failure…

The meltdown of the world's largest insurer AIG (AIG) makes the stakes of this credit crisis plain to all. In my view, the AIG situation and the subsequent turmoil in financial markets could have been avoided. The markets were clearly on…

Risk in the financial markets is high. I know, that's an obvious point. But, seriously, risk is very high. The TED spread is now at its highest since October 1987. And you remember October 1987, right?The TED in TED spread stands for…

At 9:00 PM EDT, the Federal Reserve posted a statement on its website that it has decided to offer AIG an $85 billion line of credit at a penalty rate in return for all of AIG as collateral. In addition, the Federal Reserve will receive an…

The Fed has not cut interest rates and is still worried about inflation as much as economic growth. I certainly felt the Fed was going to cut and was going to have a more dovish comment than it has. The investor reaction was to send…

The inflation rate fell to 5.4% in August in the US, paving the way for a cut in interest rates later today by the Federal Reserve.With oil prices droping by one-third over the past few months, it was a question as to whether the data would…