From the category archives:

Federal Reserve

Greenspan and the Costanza Principle

July 1, 2010

Alan Greenspan appeared on CNBC’s Squak Box this morning. Here is a recap of what he said. Personally, I am glad I went for a run rather than listen to his drivel. But, it just seems that the Costanza principle applies to Greenspan. For those who never watched the show about nothing, George Costanza experimented [...]

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Good Bank, Bad Bank

May 30, 2010

If you want some impartial analysis about local and national banks, you should head over to Weiss Research. The folks at Weiss is offering free access to the banks on their trouble list as well as the top rated banks by state. Unlike Standard and Poors, Moody’s, and A.M. Best, Weiss Ratings is not paid [...]

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Fix the Banking System by Letting Bankers Fail

May 22, 2010

An excellent op-ed piece by Jim Grant, author of Jim Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, in the Washington Post. Grant looks back at the past and finds that bankers use to be personally liable for a bank failure. The government didn’t step in and bail out the banks in the olden days. From 1848 to 1913, [...]

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The Senate Shows Whom They Serve

May 11, 2010

In a disappointing vote, the Senate shot down the Vitters Amendment that would have required an annual audit of the Federal Reserve. Instead the Senate approved Bernie Sanders amendment, which gives Congress a one-time audit. The Fed should have no problem fudging the books to pass that audit. It would be decidedly more difficult to [...]

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Are the Banks Playing Chicken?

April 22, 2010

The big banks have been reporting big earnings this quarter so far. However, the vast majority of their profits come from trading, not traditional banking activities like lending. In the real banking functions, the big banks are still losing their shirts. Citigroup just announced a $4.4 billion dollar profit this quarter. Eight billion of revenues [...]

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Why the Fed Should Be Audited

March 22, 2010

Article in the Huffington Post about how Lehman Bros. dumped a massive amount of junk on the NY Federal Reserve’s books. Essentially, when Lehman faced trouble in 2008, they had the NY Fed purchase products that couldn’t be sold on the free market. This effectively means the government was overpaying for these instruments. Lehman would [...]

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GDP Actually 5.9% – Very Small Considering the Stimulus

February 27, 2010

Turns out the U.S. GDP grew 5.9% in the fourth quarter of 2009 compared to the  initial 2.7%. However, the actual sales to consumers was lower than originally reported while inventory replenishment was larger.
Nearly two thirds of the growth in GDP in the fourth quarter was accounted for by changes in inventories, not by final [...]

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Nobel Prize Winner Calls for Reform

February 19, 2010

An interesting segment at Tech Ticker with Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize Winning economist, where he calls for banking reform now…or face another crisis in the future.

Stiglitz is a Keynesian economist. He may be more Keynesian then Keynes himself, but I, along with most Austrian economists, agree with him. To date, nothing has been done [...]

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A Bubble In Search of a Pin

February 6, 2010

Here is a Letter from John Mauldin. As usual, a thoughtful piece that focuses on the headwinds the economy faces. I agree with John, and those he quotes, in many respects about how Greenspan, Bernanke, and the powers that be missed the bubble. However, we are naive to think that the Fed would ever prick [...]

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Ratigan Nails It

February 3, 2010

Not sure if you have had a chance to watch Dylan Ratigan on MSNBC. Unfortunately, I don’t get to see his show as much as I would like due to its 4pm air time. He is one of the few talking heads that seems to understand the big picture as it relates to how Wall [...]

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