nationalization

This video from yesterday's Council on Foreign Relations symposium gives Treasury Seretary Tim Geithner a chance to explain why he has constructed his bailout plan in the way he has. Rather than editorialize the video, I will provide it…

Here we are just days out from the announcement by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner that the Obama Administration will be buying up so-called toxic assets as originally planned by Henry Paulson during the Bush Administration. The initial…

This is yet another semi-positive post about the Geithner plan. To reiterate, I think the plan is inadequate because it assumes illiquidity instead of insolvency and is a huge gift to the financial sector. But, that does not mean it will…

You may have seen Ed's post "Gillian Tett: Washington is talking to Swedes about banking crisis solutions" a week back about how the U.S. government was getting ready to talk to Swedish officials regarding the banking crisis. This is a…

Today, I want to make the case for seeing writedowns as central to this global downturn. To do so, we need to rewind and compare what is going on today with what we have experienced in the past. Drawing on this comparison, I can…

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 large bonuses at AIG have sparked yet another wave of revulsion amongst American taxpeayers. And rightfully so. This company has cost taxpayers $170 billion and counting and yet the bonuses of the same individuals complicit in the…

Gillian Tett has written in the Financial Times that the Obama Administration is no talking to the Swedes directly about their solution to the credit crisis, suggesting a openness to potential banking crisis solutions. Next week, Bo…

From Justin Fox of Time Magazine:   FDIC chairman Sheila Bair doesn't think a full government takeover of Citigroup and other multinational financial institutions is practical or even possible. Here are her reasons, as summarized by…

This is the name of a speech made by Kansas City Fed CEO Thomas Hoenig which is creating quite a stir. He makes the following points in his speech: