China’s leaders, increasingly concerned about the nation’s $740 billion of U.S. Treasuries, are making it easier for trading partners and consumers to do business in yuan.
The People’s Bank of China has agreed to provide 650 billion yuan ($95 billion) to Argentina, Belarus, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and South Korea through so-called currency- swaps. More such arrangements are being planned so importers can avoid paying for Chinese goods with dollars, the central bank said. In Hong Kong, which has pegged the currency to its U.S. counterpart since 1983, stores from Park’n Shop supermarkets to jewelers accept yuan.
Yesterday, we "invested" another $46 billion in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I should not be so pissed-off at this point but I am.
The Treasury payout yesterday included a $15.2 billion investment in Fannie’s preferred stock and a $30.8 billion purchase of Freddie’s preferred shares, the companies said in separate filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission today. The companies must pay a minimum dividend of 10 percent.
It doesn't seem like we are dealing with this crisis "head-on". Why are we not winding down their operations? I am sorry I forgot we are using them to re-leverage the housing sector.
Do we have effective control over their board and CEO? This quasi-nationalized state does nothing to restore confidence and trust. Are Fannie and Freddie bondholders going to take a "haircut"? Or will that upset China?
Absurd cable TV pundits rant and prattle about on how Obama is socialist. Uh, not so far. What the Obama administration is doing is corporate welfare.
What's the real difference between Europe and the United States?
In a nutshell they have balls and we don't.
In G20 Protests now going on all over Europe are some hints.
Protesters focused the Royal Bank of Scotland because it was bailed out by the British government after a series of disastrous deals brought it to the brink of bankruptcy. Still, its former chief executive Fred Goodwin — aged 50 — managed to walk off with a tidy annual pension of 703,000 pounds ($1.2 million) — just as unemployment in Britain is at 2 million and rising.
Are you thinking wait a second, weren't those banks given billions and billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars? Aren't they supposed to first consider U.S. workers for jobs in the United States? Weren't Bank of America and Wells Fargo made H-1B and L-1 guest worker dependent employers by legislation recently passed by Congress?
NAR’s Housing Affordability Index rose 0.9 percentage points to a record high of 173.5 in February from an upwardly revised index of 172.6 in January, and is 36.3 percentage points higher than a year ago. The HAI, a broad measure of housing affordability using consistent values and assumptions over time, shows that the relationship between home prices, mortgage interest rates and family income is the most favorable since tracking began in 1970.
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