The Panel concluded that TARP was an important part of a broader government strategy that stabilized the U.S. financial system. It is apparent after 14 months, however, that significant underlying weaknesses in the financial system remain.
[TARP]created an implicit guarantee for major financial institutions that distorts pricing for capital and encourages excessive risk-taking. Unwinding this guarantee poses a difficult long-term challenge.
Sometimes I feel like I live in economic Palestine. The bill we are talking about being gutted is H.R. 4173: Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009.
Four years after the collapse of the U.S. housing bubble, flipping homes is back in fashion.
...
The minimum bid, as set by a unit of Citigroup Inc., which had a $1.3 million mortgage on the home, was $379,900. After several minutes of bidding among investors and their representatives, some wearing shorts and flip-flops, Mr. Mirmelli won the home for $486,300. A week later, he agreed to sell it for $690,000 to a woman who moved in this month.
After all these years, and all that heartbreak, people are still trying to get back to 2006.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner plans to tell Congress that the Obama administration will extend the $700 billion financial-rescue program until next October, according to people familiar with the matter.
While the Troubled Asset Relief Program expires on Dec. 31, Geithner can extend it by notifying Congress. A letter notifying Congress of the extension could come as soon as today, said the people, who declined to be identified. Andrew Williams, a Treasury Department spokesman, declined to comment.
Well, here's a shocker, my home state of Illinois just got a downgrade from Moody's. The bottom line is that those bastards in Springfield (our capital) still haven't done anything about the $11 billion budget gap. All we do is spend spend spend, and it isn't even all on good projects. We recently saw a spat of construction jobs, but it isn't on any of the scale that is needed, nor mostly on projects that were needed. And yes, there are stories of the usual corruption. Folks here are royally pissed, and all we see is more taxes going up, not to mention fees. I won't even get into Cook County and it's corrupt nepotistic President!
Reading blogs that in any way write about economics has generally become an exercise in utter futility. According to most good news is either propagated by corporate whores who are blind to the realities around them or presented without considering "all" the facts. All government statistics and all economists are wrong -- unless they support or present a bearish viewpoint.
Normally I wouldn't notice, but someone pointed it out to me and it got me thinking. How did we arrive at this point, where the bullish and bearish are drawn up against one another in much the same way that Democrats and Republicans in Congress are?
It occurred to me that perspective has everything to do with it.
Just when you think the fictional economy cannot get any worse, we get this. The Cap & Trade is based on a new derivatives market. Oh gee! Just what the nation needs, yet another fictional mathematics market so a few traders can put the entire global economy at risk!
The banks are preparing to do with carbon what they’ve done before: design and market derivatives contracts that will help client companies hedge their price risk over the long term. They’re also ready to sell carbon-related financial products to outside investors.
We all are aware that credit ratings agencies played a major part in the financial meltdown. So, naturally one would expect to see major reforms originating from Congress.
Not only is this ignored in legislation that has any chance of passing, the New York Times is reporting we never will.
When the financial crisis began, few players on Wall Street looked more ripe for reform than the Big Three credit rating agencies.
It wasn’t just that Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings, played a crucial role in the epochal housing market collapse, affixing their most laudatory grades to billions of dollars worth of bonds that went bad in the subprime crisis.
Hey gang, came across this on CNBC's site just now. Basically, Bank of America's 'credit loss mitigation strategy' guy says that about 60%+ of all those mortgage modifications are going to bupkis. Why?
Mr. Schakett told me that of the 65 thousand trial modifications set to expire Dec. 31st with B of A, a full two thirds of the borrowers, while current on their payments, have not submitted the full documentation required to turn a trial mod permanent under the HAMP guidelines.
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