Multiple Screens! 360 Panavision! Let the shouting begin! The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold hearings the next two days. Committee Chair Representative Waxman:
Lax oversight and reckless investments on Wall Street are causing massive disruption throughout our economy. Our hearings will examine what went wrong and who should be held to account.
Up on the executive chopping block are:
DAY 1: Causes and Effects of the Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy
Dr. Luigi Zingales, Professor of Finance, University of Chicago
Dr. Robert F. Wescott, President, Keybridge Research LLC
Nell Minow, Chairman of the Board and Editor, The Corporate Library
Gregory W. Smith, General Counsel, Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association
Other banks in the U.K. and Europe also have seen noticeable outflows since Ireland's ground-breaking deposit guarantee was announced Tuesday, say people familiar with the matte
Even though the UK raised insurance last week, they are now under pressure to guarantee all deposits.
The New York Times calls the new program HOPE a lead balloon:
Under the program, the government will insure up to $300 billion in new, more affordable loans for troubled borrowers. For the insurance to kick in, however, lenders must first voluntarily refinance the delinquent mortgages by reducing the loan balances to 90 percent of the home’s current market value.
In exchange, lenders would avoid the expense of foreclosure and uncertainty about being repaid. The government would stem the social and economic damage of more foreclosures, at presumably little risk to taxpayers.
There’s just one problem. At a Congressional hearing in September, lenders were lukewarm about participating in the new program — reluctant, it seems, to take the loss that comes with reducing loan balances.
On March 4, 1933, President-elect Franklin Roosevelt was greeted with grey, cold, overcast skies. The feeling of despair and hopelessness in Washington was so palpable in the air that First Lady-to be Eleanore Roosevelt later said she felt like crying during the Inauguration Parade down Pennsylvania Avenue.
No one realized it at the time, but the Great Depression was at its nadir. That nadir was marked by what was to be the greatest inauguration speech ever given. It was a message of hope, leadership, and fairness, as well as a denunciation of the "money changers" and the need for regulating the financial markets.
But mostly it was a call to do the exact opposite of what Congress chose to do this week.
Both national and international finance over the last few weeks have appeared to degenerate into what could be called "Global Financial Calvinball":
For those of you who may not be familiar with the comic strip, "Calvin and Hobbes", Calvinball is an imaginary sport where the rules were made up on the fly by the players, and always of course to the detriment of the other player.
Whether it is the SEC in the US suddenly deciding that shorting financial stocks is not allowed, or the Irish and Greek governments insuring unlimited bank deposits, or the Dutch bailing out Fortis Bank, or the Chinese disallowing lending to US banks,not to mention the gargantuan, ill-thought-out $700 billion Wall Street bailout, national and international financial regulators are making up the rules week by week, and sometimes changing them day by day.
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
This week we have a corporate biased, but very well done, PBS documentary Commanding Heights.
Contained within this video are the Russian and 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the Great Depression and Globalization. Also is the admittance that the interactions and dependencies of global markets, financial markets is not well understood.
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
Recent comments