Jesse's Café Américain Thu 2009-12-17 09:56 EST

Treasury Cancels Plans to Sell Citi Stake After Failed Equity Offering Stings Shareholders

Jesse

The shareholders of Citigroup should be furious at the greedy and reckless actions of Citi's management in diluting their shares in order to obtain a freer hand in granting themselves fat bonuses. Tonight's equity offering failed to bring in a sufficient price, serving up a significant 20% discount to existing holders of the stock...Technically, Citi can pay back the TARP money from the proceeds. I wonder if they have the gall to do that and pay themselves bonuses this year to boot, which is the basis for this exercise in dilution in the first place. This shows the farce that the Obama financial reforms really are. Nothing has changed except that big bank losses were transferred to the public debt.

Failed Equity Offering Stings Shareholders; Jesse's Café Américain; Sell Citi Stake; Treasury cancels plans.

Wed 2009-12-16 12:30 EST

James Grant Mourns the Loss of the Gold Standard - WSJ.com

...There's no business value in financial safety when the government bails out the unsafe. And by bailing out a scandalously large number of unsafe institutions, the government necessarily puts the dollar at risk...Collateralize the dollar--make it exchangeable into something of genuine value. Get the Fed out of the price-fixing business. Replace Ben Bernanke with a latter-day Thomson Hankey. Find--cultivate--battalions of latter-day Hellmans and set them to running free-market banks. There's one more thing: Return to the statute books Section 19 of the 1792 Coinage Act...

com; gold standard; James Grant mourns; losses; WSJ.

zero hedge Fri 2009-10-23 09:05 EDT

Fitch Expects CMBS Loss Severity To Rise Markedly Next Year

As anyone who has spent even a day looking at securitization tranching or CDS trading will tell you, there are two critical components to any investment that involves risky fixed income: cumulative loss probability and loss severity...artificial delays in bringing the CRE market to fair value in terms of delinquencies and REOs going to foreclosures will simply result in much lower eventual recoveries...the temporary reprieves granted to many leveraged securities will come back to bite investors when defaults eventually pick up again, however with the result being loss rates which will be much higher than default expectations.

Fitch Expects CMBS Loss Severity; Rise Markedly; years; Zero Hedge.

Tue 2009-09-22 08:32 EDT

From Bear to Bull: James Grant on Recession and Recovery - WSJ.com

James Grant

James Grant argues the latest gloomy forecasts ignore an important lesson of history: The deeper the slump, the zippier the recovery.

Bear; Bulls; com; James Grant; Recession; recovery; WSJ.

ClubOrlov Wed 2009-08-26 14:22 EDT

That Bastion of American Socialism...the United States military

kollapsnik

Over the past few months the American mainstream chatter has experienced a sudden spike in the gratuitous use of the term "Socialist." It was prompted by the attempts of the federal government to resuscitate insolvent financial institutions. These attempts included offers of guarantees to their clients, injections of large sums of borrowed public money, and granting them access to almost-free credit that was magically summoned ex nihilo by the Federal Reserve. To some observers, these attempts looked like an emergency nationalization of the finance sector was underway, prompting them to cry "Socialism!" Their cries were not as strident as one would expect, bereft of the usual disdain that normally accompanies the use of this term. Rather, it was proffered with a wan smile, because the commentators could find nothing... ``Since the end of the Civil War, Americans have become accustomed to thinking of war as something that happens elsewhere, to other people. Thus, the news that the US is bombing this or that land, for no adequate reason, killing and maiming numerous civilians, produces in us neither the normal human reaction of revulsion, nausea and disgust, nor the conviction that we must take the fight to our own monstrous leaders, lest we too become monsters. Life under domestic military occupation might bring home some welcome realizations, and start Americans down the long road of atoning for the sins of their forefathers, who have run roughshod over much of the rest of the planet for far too long.''

American social; bastion; ClubOrlov; United States military.

Tue 2009-01-06 00:00 EST

Jesse's Café Américain: US Treasuries and our Horribly Distorted International Currency Exchange Mechanism

Jesse's Café Américain: US Treasuries and our Horribly Distorted International Currency Exchange Mechanism; ``The key to recovery is the median real hourly wage, not the further expansion of credit and the perpetuation of an economic system based on an inefficient drag on economic growth by percentage-taking banks and rent-seeking elites who add little or no productive value.''; James Grant: Insight: Return-free risk

Horribly Distorted International Currency Exchange Mechanism; Jesse's Café Américain; Treasury.

Tue 2008-10-07 00:00 EDT

James Grant - Bad Medicine

(Washington Post); ``Low interest rates, easy money and malleable accounting rules are what plunged Wall Street into crisis. Yet it is low interest rates, easy money and malleable accounting rules that top the list of federal fixes''

Bad Medicine; James Grant.

Sat 2008-07-19 00:00 EDT

Why No Outrage? - WSJ.com

Why No Outrage? by James Grant - WSJ.com; "Wall Street's damaging recklessness has been met with near-silence, from a too-tolerant populace"; "the old populists actually won...paper money, federally insured bank deposits and a heavy governmental hand in the distribution of credit"

com; Outrage; WSJ.

Sat 2008-07-19 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Jim Grant: "Why No Outrage?"

comments pertaining to uninsured small business deposits and potential bank runs

Jim granting; naked capitalism; Outrage.

Fri 2008-06-20 00:00 EDT

Walter Bagehot Was Wrong - June 19, 2008 - The New York Sun

Walter Bagehot Was Wrong, by James Grant - June 19, 2008 - The New York Sun; Jim Grant: structuring mortgages for central bank deposit in special liquidity facilities will result in a new cycle of currency debasement; Walter Bagehot versus Thomson Hankey on central banks, moral hazard, fairness, and ready money

2008; June 19; New York Sun; Walter Bagehot; wrong.

Mon 2007-11-12 00:00 EST

Hussman Funds - How and Why Options Should Be Expensed From Corporate Earnings

Option grants dilute shareholder value; by John P. Hussman

corporations earnings; expensive; Hussman Funds; optionality.

Tue 2007-08-28 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Jim Grant on the Subprime Crisis

naked capitalism: Jim Grant in the NYT on the Subprime Crisis; "capitalism without financial failure is not capitalism at all, but a kind of socialism for the rich"

Jim granting; naked capitalism; subprime crisis.