naked capitalism Sun 2009-09-13 15:59 EDT

Another Lehman Mess: No One Can Run the Software

Lehman's global derivatives book included contracts with a notional face value of $39,000bn and deals with 8,000 different counterparties when it went bust. The derivatives business was actually split into multiple strands, backed up by between 20 and 30 different systems. Once it went bankrupt, the staff who supported these systems "evaporated"...The more time goes by, the less insight remains in terms of the people who staffed those systems...Many previously hidden costs of running a derivatives business, including technology support of multiple disjointed systems, can no longer be discounted.

Lehman Mess; naked capitalism; running; software.

Jesse's Café Américain Sun 2009-09-13 10:32 EDT

Barrick Capitulates

Jesse

Barrick and their partner J.P. Morgan were the target of lawsuits by the gold bulls, most notably Blanchard and Company, for price manipulation through the use of their forward sales in their hedge book. Barrick's original defense was reported to be that they were acting in conjunction with J. P. Morgan and the central banks to cap the price of gold, and were therefore immune from prosecution since the central banks are immune from prosecution. Gold market manipulations.

Barrick Capitulates; Jesse's Café Américain.

Bruce Krasting Fri 2009-09-04 18:31 EDT

Fannie Has .9 Trillion in Troubled Loans - 8K

Bruce Krasting

Fannie Mae's 8k has an interesting slide. It is a look at their questionable assets. The slide is not easy to read. It can be found in the 2009 Second Quarter Supplement, on page 5. The report describes FNM's exposure to problematic classes of mortgages on their book. That total comes to a whopping .9 Trillion. The total book of business is $2.7 Trillion, fully 32% of their book is troubled.

8k; 9 trillion; Bruce Krasting; Fannie; troubled loans.

Credit Writedowns Thu 2009-09-03 11:38 EDT

Sheila Bair and the case against a super-regulator

There is an effort underway to install the Federal Reserve as super-regulator for all banks and financial institutions, concentrating power in one institution. I find these efforts one of the most disturbing outgrowths of the financial crisis we have been witnessing...better to enforce the rules and regulations that are currently on the books than to build in a whole new super-structure.

Case; credit writedowns; Sheila Bair; Super-Regulator.

Jesse's Café Américain Wed 2009-09-02 18:45 EDT

Russian Professor Panarin Sees US Following the Russian Collapse Model

Jesse

Professor Igor Panarin, whose book The Crash of America is just out, now claims that by November the book will be yesterdays news because the events described in it will have alrady come to pass.

Jesse's Café Américain; Russian Collapse Model; Russian Professor Panarin Sees.

Fri 2009-07-24 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Guest Post: AIG CDS Unwind Goes From Waterfall To A Trickle

*** banks' fixed income trading desks generated phenomenal profitability in January and February hadnothing to do with actual trading of fixed income and everything to do with AIG's hamheaded (and loss-generating) unwind of its CDS book''

AIG CDS Unwind Goes; Guest Post; naked capitalism; trickle; waterfall.

Tue 2009-04-21 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Guest post: A few thoughts about the banking crisis response in the United States

by Edward Harrison; ``any solution for recapitalization must address future writedowns and loan losses of assets already on the books if it is to be successful''

Banking crisis response; Guest Post; naked capitalism; thought; United States.

Tue 2009-02-24 00:00 EST

About Bailout Nation | The Big Picture

Barry Ritholtz; McGraw Hill Drops Book Critical of S&P

Bailout Nation; Big Picture.

Thu 2009-01-08 00:00 EST

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Book Review: Clean Money - Picking Winners in the Green Tech Boom

John Rubino

Book review; clean money; green-tech boom; Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis; picking winners.

Tue 2008-10-07 00:00 EDT

He Foresaw the End of an Era - The New York Review of Books

He Foresaw the End of an Era, by John Cassidy - The New York Review of Books; review of George Soros' The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means

books; ending; era; foresaw; New York Review.

Tue 2008-09-23 00:00 EDT

The Perilous Price of Oil - The New York Review of Books

The Perilous Price of Oil, by George Soros - The New York Review of Books; ``prices in financial markets do not necessarily tend toward equilibrium...There is a two-way, reflexive interplay between biased market perceptions and the fundamentals, and that interplay can carry markets far from equilibrium. Every sequence of boom and bust, or bubble, begins with some fundamental change, such as the spread of the Internet, and is followed by a misinterpretation of the new trend in prices that results from the change. Initially that misinterpretation reinforces both the trend and the misinterpretation itself; but eventually the gap between reality and the market's interpretation of reality becomes too wide to be sustainable.''

books; New York Review; Oil; Perilous Price.

Wed 2008-07-09 00:00 EDT

The GOP's December Surprise

by James K. Galbraith; s the GOP cooking the books to avoid recession till after Election Day? Fed eases for republican incumbents, tightens for democrats!

GOP's December Surprise.

Thu 2008-07-03 00:00 EDT

The Necessary War by William S. Lind

The Necessary War, by William S. Lind; reviews Pat Buchanan's "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unecessary War"; demolishing Churchill; "n both World Wars, the U.S. came out a winner because it left most of the fighting to others." "Debunking comic-book history and replacing it with the real thing is vital if America is to avoid the dual trap of cultural Marxism and Brave New World."

necessary war; William S. Lind.

Fri 2008-06-20 00:00 EDT

The Big Picture | Bloomberg: Can the Fed Cook Bear's Books?

Big Picture; Bloomberg; Fed Cook Bear's Books.

Mon 2007-12-10 00:00 EST

Money Matters: A Bubble That Broke The World--Book By Garet Garrett

by Elaine Meinel Supkis; "Chinese plan...accept a loss of even $2 trillion if this means the utter destruction of the US military due to the USA going bankrupt"

books; broke; bubble; Garet Garrett; money matters; world.

Mon 2007-10-08 00:00 EDT

Adam Smith - An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations - The Adam Smith Institute

(Book Five, Of the Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth. Chapter III, Of Public Debts; "In great empires the people who live in the capital, and in the provinces remote from the scene of action, feel, many of them, scarce any inconveniency from the war; but enjoy, at their ease, the amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of their own fleets and armies."

Adam Smith; Adam Smith Institute; caused; inquiry; nation; natural; wealth.