Archive for July, 2008
Thursday, July 24th, 2008
Hi readers. I'll be on the Amazon River in Peru and the Galapagos Islands off Ecuador thru the first week of August. So if you don't see any new posts for a couple weeks, you know why!
No doubt there will be lots of news on which to comment ...
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008
A guest perspective........
BY JOHN WINKLER
It's fun to watch Obamaniacs' disillusion over Their Chosen One's changes of position. They seem to view his modifications as a form of treason but it's really been quite clear that what the man is is a very good politician. He seems to have always understood ...
Posted in politics | 6 Comments »
Thursday, July 17th, 2008
Like the rest of the real estate universe, the Mortgage Bankers Association is in trouble. Membership is in decline, meeting attendance is down and some of MBA's largest conference sponsors are either out of business or cutting back. With this in mind, it seems a poorly-timed decision to double-down ...
Posted in bubble, housing, politics | 4 Comments »
Sunday, July 13th, 2008
Freddie Mac's PR people are fighting back, even as Hank Paulson is floating a bailout plan that would make explicit the implicit taxpayer guarantee backing their debt. Yesterday the company began purchasing keyword-targeted online ads from Google. "Keyword-targeted" ads are pretty simple to understand. Websites that take advertising from ...
Posted in bailout, credit crunch, Economy, GSE, housing, stocks, taxpayer issues | 6 Comments »
Friday, July 11th, 2008
First reported on the Implode-o-Meter yesterday, IndyMac bank's $32 billion in assets have been taken over by the FDIC. This is the largest bank failure since the $40 billion bailout of Continental Illinois in 1984. Federal authorities estimate the bailout will cost taxpayers $4-$8 billion. (And that ...
Posted in bailout, banking, bubble, Economy, government spending, GSE, housing, taxpayer issues | 11 Comments »
Monday, July 7th, 2008
The cliff-diving in Fannie and Freddie shares has accelerated the last week, culminating in 15%+ drops for both stocks today. This gives me a great opportunity to reprint the Op-Ed I published in the Baltimore Sun back in January.
What will we do if the Big Two go bust?
By Rolfe ...
Posted in bailout, bubble, credit crunch, GSE, housing, taxpayer issues | No Comments »
Sunday, July 6th, 2008
New York Senator Chuck Schumer caught some flack last week for leaking his concerns about IndyMac to the press. Perhaps imprudent, but probably prescient. The FDIC is certainly looking very closely at the bank's books after a mini bank-run last week. [Update: IndyMac announcing that certain operations will shut down ...
Posted in bailout, banking, credit crunch, Economy, taxpayer issues | 13 Comments »
Friday, July 4th, 2008
The NYT will report in tomorrow's paper that Merrill is seeking a buyer for its 20% stake in Bloomberg LP, the maker of the ubiquitous financial terminals. According to the Times:
...Merrill, which has already raised $15 billion since John A. Thain took over as chief executive last fall, is ...
Posted in banking, credit crunch, Wall Street | 3 Comments »
Friday, July 4th, 2008
Barack Obama has been sprinting to the center since he secured the Democratic nomination. If he's not totally reversing himself on many issues, he's certainly qualifying his views in significant, new ways:
Guns
Iraq
Public Financing for campaigns
Immunity for telecoms on wiretapping
NAFTA
And today: Abortion
All of the above happened just in the last ...
Posted in politics | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
If skyrocketing food and oil prices point to inflation on the rise, then why has the Fed risked even more inflation by lowering interest rates so much since last Fall? That's a popular question these days. And one that's hard to answer without knowing how the Fed works.
The ...
Posted in banking, credit crunch, Dollar, Economy, Fed, inflation, Interest Rates, tutorial | 31 Comments »
