Fri 2010-02-26 10:45 EST

Saudi Central Banker Confirms that US Dollar is on its Deathbed | The Underground Investor

In Hong Kong, Mohammed al-Jasser, the head of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority affirmed that the US dollar's role as the world's reserve currency is coming to an end when he stated, ``The dollar is still preeminent in its role as a reserve currency.'' We should recall former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Blinder's statement, ``The last duty of a central banker is to tell the public the truth'' (PBS's Nightly Business Report, 1994) and thus be astute enough to realize that the often hollow words of Central Bankers serve as a contrary indicator of the truth...

deathbed; Dollar; Saudi Central Banker Confirms; Underground Investor.

The Economic Populist - Speak Your Mind 2 Cents at a Time Sun 2010-02-07 18:20 EST

Is Residential Real Estate a Ticking Time Bomb?

...First is the latest SIGTARP report saying the Government has become the mortgage market with U.S. taxpayers shouldering the risk. From the SIGTARP report we have a 100% government mortgage market at this point...Fannie and Freddie now have an unlimited bailout and it is estimated they have lost $400 billion dollars. The plan is to purchase $1.25 trillion mortgage backed securities from these two GSEs until the end of March...The number of homeowners who are strategically walking away from their mortgages is up to 10% this year...All of the above free money, the government pouring in trillions of dollars to prop up the housing market. Yet while price declines have slowed, prices are still declining and the above simply cannot go on forever. In fact one thing isn't going on forever. The Fed will stop buying MBSes at the end of March, 2010. So, when our government created illusion does pop, do we then have the real housing bubble implosion?

economic populist; Mind 2 Cents; residential real estate; speaking; ticking time bomb; Time.

Thu 2010-01-07 20:04 EST

Hard times at the Washington Post

Dean Baker

The Washington Post is a newspaper with a proud legacy. It has done much important reporting over the years, most famously its coverage of the Watergate scandal that resulted in the resignation of Richard Nixon. Unfortunately, it seems to have abandoned its journalistic standards. In its last issue of the decade, it published as a news piece an article by the Peter Peterson Foundation-funded Fiscal Times. This compromised the Post's journalistic integrity to the extent that readers can no longer take it seriously.

hard times; Washington Post.

zero hedge Thu 2009-12-31 11:52 EST

Shadowstats' John Williams: Prepare For The Hyperinflationary Great Depression

John Williams, who runs the popular counter government data manipulation site Shadowstats, has thrown down the gauntlet to deflationists, and in an extensive report concludes that the probability of a hyperinflationary episode in America over the next year has reached critical levels. While the debate between deflationists and (hyper)inflationists has been a long and painful one, numerous events set off in motion by the Bernanke Fed (as a direct legacy of the Greenspan multi-decade period of cheap and boundless credit) may have well cast America as the unwilling protagonist in the sequel of the failed monetary policy economic experiment better known as Zimbabwe.

Hyperinflationary Great Depression; John Williams; prepared; ShadowStats; Zero Hedge.

naked capitalism Wed 2009-12-16 15:18 EST

Hosptial Cleaners Are Worth More Than Bankers (and Quelle Surprise, Bankers Destroy Value!)

A provocative report by the New Economics Foundation has made an effort to put a price tag on the broader costs and benefits of various types of work. As quoted in the Financial Times...The authors assume the financial crisis and recession would not have happened without City bankers engaging in risky, opaque and complex transactions. Applying a guess about the cost of the recession on the rest of society, they estimate top City bankers des-troy £7 of value for every £1 they are paid privately.

bankers; Bankers Destroy Value; Hosptial Cleaners; naked capitalism; Quelle Surprise.

Jesse's Café Américain Tue 2009-12-01 22:19 EST

Mark Pittman, Investigative Journalist

Jesse

Mark Pittman, the award-winning investigative reporter whose fight to open the Federal Reserve to more scrutiny led Bloomberg News to sue the central bank and win, died Nov. 25 in Yonkers, New York. He was 52. ...``He was one of the great financial journalists of our time,'' said Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University in New York and the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for economics. ``His death is shocking.''

investigation journalist; Jesse's Café Américain; Mark Pittman.

New Deal 2.0 Mon 2009-11-30 13:44 EST

Geithner's Disgrace

Eliot Spitzer

he issue has been festering for months: Why were AIG's counterparties -- including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and UBS -- paid 100 cents on the dollar when the feds rescued the insurance giant, helping raising the cost of the bailout to nearly $200 billion? A new report issued by Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky now reveals that government officials, notably then -- New York Fed President and current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, grievously damaged the nation and capitulated to the very banks they should have been supervising.

0; Geithner's Disgrace; new dealing 2.

zero hedge Mon 2009-11-30 11:15 EST

Fannie Mae Reports Massive Q3 Loss, Asks For Another $15 Billion From Government As It Is Set To Become Largest US Landlord

The latest particular does of lunacy and economic calamity coming out of the intellectual midgets at Fannie and the FHA should be sufficient to push the market well into 1,100 territory tomorrow. FNM's loss for Q3 is $18.9 billion, up from $14.8 billion in Q2, a time when the market was up a good 15%: ever wonder who keeps on subsidizing those gain? That's right - you. Credit-related expenses increased to $22 billion in Q3 from $18.8 billion in Q2. Oh, and Fannie now wants another $15 billion rescue from the Treasury (which is having some troubles with getting that pesky debt ceiling raised to one googol) so it can continue with its plan of keeping shadow inventory away from the market, rent foreclosed houses to their owners at staggeringly low rates, and continue the pretence that bank's balance sheets are well capitalized...

15; asks; becoming largest; Fannie Mae Reports Massive Q3 Loss; government; landlord; set; Zero Hedge.

The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Wed 2009-11-25 12:11 EST

Geithner Singled Out In TARP Watchdog Neil Barofsky's Scathing Report On AIG Bailout

The Huffington Post News Editors

In its bailout last fall of the insurance giant AIG, a team led by current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner failed nearly every step of the way, according to a scathing report released Monday by a government watchdog. Instead of bargaining with AIG's numerous counterparties to resolve its billions of dollars in souring derivatives contracts, Geithner's team ended up funneling payments for those toxic derivatives to AIG's counterparties at "an amount far above their market value at the time," the report notes.

AIG Bailout; com; full Feeds; Geithner singled; HuffingtonPost; TARP watchdog Neil Barofsky's scathing report.

zero hedge Wed 2009-11-25 11:40 EST

Neil Barofski's AIG Counterparty Payment Report Released; Demands Federal Reserve Transparency

The full SIGTARP report on AIG and its counterparty payments has been released. It contains all you need to know about the NYFED's bailout of Goldman Sachs. We are currently going through the report, and will post our findings as we have them...the most critical conclusion presented by Neil Barofsky: The SIGTARP blasts the Fed's ongoing desire to keep everything hidden and under a layer of opacity, as it keeps on lying to taxpayers that all is fine with the US economy, and urges investors to part with their hard-earned dollars and "invest" in toxic husks of zombie companies, when it knows full well that the entire financial system is constantly on the cusp of yet another collapse, and the market ponzi scheme could collapse at any minute.

Demands Federal Reserve Transparency; Neil Barofski's AIG Counterparty Payment Report Released; Zero Hedge.

Calculated Risk Wed 2009-11-25 11:38 EST

Fannie Mae: $18.9 Billion Loss, Requests Another $15 Billion

CalculatedRisk

Press Release: Fannie Mae Reports Third-Quarter 2009 Results Fannie Mae (FNM/NYSE) reported a net loss of $18.9 billion in the third quarter of 2009, compared with a loss of $14.8 billion in the second quarter of 2009. ... Third-quarter results were largely due to $22.0 billion of credit related expenses, reflecting the continued build of the company's combined loss reserves and fair value losses associated with the increasing number of loans that were acquired from mortgage backed securities trusts in order to pursue loan modifications. ... As a result, on November 4, 2009, the Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) submitted a request for $15.0 billion from Treasury on the company's behalf.

15; 18; 9; Calculated Risk; Fannie Mae; losses; requesting.

The Economic Populist - Speak Your Mind 2 Cents at a Time Wed 2009-11-25 11:23 EST

Societe Generale - How to Prepare Yourself for a Global Economic Collapse

Commodities Bugs are ecstatic with the French firm Societe Generale's Worst Case Debt Scenario Report...On the first page you will see as the number one thing to do to project yourself: Sell your dollars

economic populist; global economic collapse; Mind 2 Cents; prepared; Societe generally; speaking; Time.

naked capitalism Wed 2009-11-25 10:14 EST

Ivy Zelman: ``Home prices are going back down''

Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns

This is a post I wrote overnight about rising delinquencies and shadow housing inventory. I am not convinced house prices in the U.S. are headed higher permanently...The Mortgage Bankers Association is reporting that nearly one in ten households with mortgages are at least one payment behind. That is a record, my friends...Look, the fake recovery is now in full swing. But I expect the recovery to hit a brick wall by 2011, if not earlier. While the proximate cause of my concern is the likelihood of increased taxes and/or reduced spending by the Obama Administration, it is jobs that concern me. See Calculated Risk's post showing the correlation between unemployment and mortgage delinquency and you see the connection. The fact is we have a record number of foreclosures and that is a direct result of rising unemployment. Unemployed people don't have any money, so they don't pay mortgages.

Go; home prices; Ivy Zelman; naked capitalism.

naked capitalism Thu 2009-11-19 19:32 EST

Very Abbreviated Takedown on SIGTARP Report on AIG CDS Payouts

Dear sports fans, your humble blogger, along with a ton of others, got the not-very-embargoed copy of the SIGTARP report on the New York Fed's conduct with respect to its full payout on AIG's credit default swaps to its counterparties. The press is treating the report as if it was tough. I was sputtering with anger when reading it on how soft it was on the Fed. The positioning and framing of the issues was almost without exception far too forgiving. It read as if the findings had been negotiated with the Fed (and SIGTARP lost the negotiations as the ``shape of the table'' stage), but I am assured not, not by SIGTARP, but by those, as they like to say, in a position to know. That says SIGTARP is almost as badly cognitively captured as the Fed is...

Abbreviated Takedown; AIG CDS Payouts; naked capitalism; SIGTARP report.

Bruce Krasting Thu 2009-11-19 10:52 EST

FHFA's DeMarco Speaks - Ouch!

Bruce Krasting

FHFA's Acting Director Edward DeMarco provided written testimony to the Senate today. I would give his presentation a B+. There is little room for optimism in this story. Mr. DeMarco did not gloss that fact over. A few snips from that speech: -From July 2007 through the first half of 2009--combined losses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac totaled $165 billion. In the first half of 2009, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together reported net losses of $47 billion. -Since the establishment of the conservatorships, the combined losses at the two Enterprises depleted all their capital and required them to draw $96 billion. The combined support from the federal government exceeds $1 trillion. -The short-term outlook for the Enterprises remains troubled and likely will require additional draws...

Bruce Krasting; FHFA's DeMarco Speaks; Ouch.

naked capitalism Thu 2009-11-19 10:33 EST

Guest Post: Herding the Sheep

George Washington of Washington's Blog

Financial insider and commentator Yves Smith wrote an essay last week entitled ``MSM Reporting as Propaganda'' arguing that the government has been using propaganda to make people think that things are getting better, no one is angry, and -- therefore -- no one should get upset...Is Smith right? And even if she is, isn't ``propaganda'' too strong a word?...Even if true, propaganda is too strong a word for attempts to convince people that important issues are boring, that no one else is angry about them, and that everything is normal. Perhaps ``herding the wayward sheep'' would be better . . .

Guest Post; Herd; naked capitalism; sheep.