Thursday, December 4, 2008
The litigation tide is coming in… the damage of the credit crisis needs to be righted… the courts will help sort it out…
~~~~ “Grais & Ellsworth LLP has filed the attached Countrywide Class Action Complaint.
The complaint demands a declaration that Countrywide must purchase at par every mortgage loan that it sold to any of 374 securitization [...]
Thursday, December 4, 2008
From Jesse’s Cafe…
~~~~ ” Senator Chris Dodd made an interesting proposal this afternoon, and on thinking further it seems to be one of the most reasonable and practical suggestions that we’ve heard during this crisis.
The Senator proposed that whatever givebacks, restrictions, haircuts, penalties, oversight, pay cuts and equity arrangements that are written into the bridge [...]
Thursday, December 4, 2008
I attended the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) open meeting for adoption of the Final Rules for credit rating agencies in Washington yesterday … these are the rules which regulate Standard & Poors (MHP) , Moody’s (MCO) and Fitch.
I’ve been writing comments to the SEC on this issue since 2003 and it’s amazing to see how [...]
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
There is no better commenter in the blogsphere than Don-the-Libertarian Democrat… I’ve copied his post reviewing Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke’s speech in Austin….
~~~~ Ben Bernanke gave a speech yesterday:
“As you know, this extraordinary period of financial turbulence is now well into its second year. Triggered by the contraction of the U.S. housing market that began [...]
Steven Major of HSBC talks about index linked securities, says the central banks are trying to reflate, reflate, reflate… cenbanks are undertaking a deflationary strategy …he is concerned about gross government bond issuance… Steven is known for making strong directional calls… I worked with him at ING Barings… (running time ~ 6 min)
~~~~ ” Treasuries “are yielding next to nothing,” said Robert Millikan, who manages $5 billion at BB&T Asset Management in Raleigh, North Carolina, including the $51 million BB&T Short U.S. Government Fund. “Trying to do something for your shareholders, it’s hard to sit there and buy a bond that yields less than any fees you [...]
~~~~ ” …What Geithner and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke failed to tell the Congress, President-elect Barack Obama and the American people is that CDS dealers don’t post any effective collateral at all with other dealers. So much for the legal requirements for safety and soundness in 12 CFR. If Barack Obama and the Congress ever [...]
Sunday, November 30, 2008
~~~~ ” ….The real driver in the consumption problem is Mrs. Watanabe, the Japanese equivalent of the “soccer mom” in the US.
She is frightened.
If you took Mr. or Mrs Watanabe’s pulse in terms of job security, it has tripled in the last two years.
The reason for the fear probably is the collapse of Yamaichi Securities.
At [...]
Sunday, November 30, 2008
The collapse of the interrelations between units of the global financial system has created chaos… many voices are trying to reestablish the threads that weave the various levels of the system back together… limits… everyone is calling for limits…
But are limits really a sound framework for controlling the world’s financial system?
Who defines, controls and enforces [...]
Friday, November 28, 2008
This is a clip from Aug 12th on Bloomberg News (running time ~~ 4 minutes)… it concerns the auction rate securities markets…analysis by Adam Dean, President of SVB Asset Management and Joe Mysak, Bloomberg columnist…
Mr. Dean talks about the approx $ 200 billion dollars of ARS that the large banks had to bring back on [...]