Category: Credit Crisis Bailouts
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Sunday, March 08, 2009
The Bottomless Bailout / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Ralph Nader writes: Does anybody in the federal government know or could know “who, what, where and when” of the massive, complex, vertical, horizontal, global collapse of Wall Street and its planetary tentacles in over 100 countries abroad? Step forward if you exist! Uncle Sam needs you!Is the multi-million dollar bailout of this financial mess and house of cards, this phantom wealth mummy hitting air beyond the federal governments' salvage capability?
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Thursday, March 05, 2009
Why TALF is Bad for America / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
The recent Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) announcements bring to mind Einstein's definition of insanity – “doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results”. It is well documented that securitization of loans, use of leverage, and government intervention in the free markets helped inflate assets bubbles, fostered a culture of debt, and distorted the efficient allocation of limited resources in our economy. If you want a good real world example, Fannie Mae bonds guaranteed by the government, backed by a pool of subprime mortgages, and bought using borrowed money (leverage) touches most of the bases.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Top Secret Credit Crisis Bailouts / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Interesting stories are stacking up again so it's time for some economic potpourri starting with secret dealings by the Fed.Fed Refuses to Release Bank Lending Data, Insists on Secrecy The Fed refused yesterday to disclose the names of the borrowers and the loans, alleging that it would cast “a stigma” on recipients of more than $1.9 trillion of emergency credit from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
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Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Stop The Seller Funded Down Payment Assistance (SFDPA) Scam / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Aaron Krowne at Implode-O-Meter has asked me to help stop the Seller Funded Down Payment Assistance (SFDPA) scam.Barry Ritholtz at the Big Picture, Dr. Housing Bubble, Patrick.Net, Blown Mortgage and the Mess That Greenspan Made have already written about this scam, so I am risking the dreaded "piling on" penalty but here goes.
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Sunday, March 01, 2009
Citigroup Crashes as U.S. Tax Payers Take on $3trillion Liabilities / Companies / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Citigroup plunged 39% on Friday to $1.50, a price last seen in 1992. The plunge was in response to a Citigroup U.S. Accord on a Third Bailout that will convert the government's preferred shares to common, thereby diluting existing common shareholders and exposing US taxpayers to more losses.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, February 27, 2009
Criminal Banks and Brokers Continue To Ply Their Trade... / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Stealing From You and Me As the Public Carries On Its Belief in Fantasies - What ever would possess intelligent professionals such as those running the finances of major financial institutions to leverage their equity 88 to one in the case of Citigroup and 134 to one in the case of Bank of America? JP Morgan's credit exposure to financial derivatives, (financial weapons of mass destruction) at last glance exceeded 400 to 1!Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Bernanke Burns More Tax Payer Billions in Banks Capital Assistance Program / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Bernanke has fired yet another misguided missile to stabilize the banking system. His new program is called the Capital Assistance Program and supposedly it will restore confidence in banks and get them to lend. Here is a description of the program:Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Time to Break Up the Big Banks / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Timothy Geithner is putting the finishing touches on a plan that will dump $1 trillion of toxic assets onto the US taxpayer. The plan, which goes by the opaque moniker the "Public-Private Investment Fund" (PPIF), is designed to provide lavish incentives to hedge funds and private equity firms to purchase bad assets from failing banks. It is a sweetheart deal that provides government financing and guarantees for illiquid mortgage-backed junk for which there is currently no active market.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Deceitful Bailout of Citigroup and Bank of America / Companies / Credit Crisis Bailouts
A magic bailout of Citigroup and Bank of America is underway. Supposedly this bailout will not require any new capital. Details can be found in a Joint Statement by the Treasury, FDIC, OCC, OTS and the Federal Reserve on the economy.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, February 23, 2009
Auto Bailout: If You Thought it Was Ridiculous Before… / Companies / Credit Crisis Bailouts
To be honest, I figured General Motors would be in bankruptcy by now. With a monthly burn rate estimated to be between $2 billion and $6 billion (depending on source) it would seem this money hole would have imploded sooner rather than later.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, February 23, 2009
How to Value a Toxic Asset / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Price is not the same thing as Value, that's the whole point. Investment is about buying when value is more than price and selling when price is more than value; it's not complicated. Price is easy, the hard part is value.
The "vexing" problem of valuing toxic assets " was how Jeffry Sachs of Columbia University recent described the state of play of the ongoing Black Comedy (http://blogs.ft.com/economistsforum/2009/02/a-strategy-of-contingent-nationalisation/.)
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Saturday, February 21, 2009
Geithner's Toxic Plans for Toxic Assets / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Exit Paulson, enter Geithner with the latest "no banker left behind plan" - aka whatever Wall Street wants, Wall Street gets. Yet, the reception was underwhelming. The Dow plummeted 382 points while investors took shelter in bonds and gold. AP reported that "the new bank rescue plan landed with a thud on Wall Street" as investors worried that no end to the crisis is in sight. Editorial and op-ed commentaries were near unanimously negative and some especially critical.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, February 20, 2009
Geithner's Plan.. Mark-to-Market, Who Gets Screwed? / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Growing up I had a girlfriend whose family had once owned a string of retail outlets in Bavaria (that's in " Germany " ( Europe )). One day her dad told me his story. A few years before the war a local Party Official came round to the house and proposed to his dad that in return for selling him all those stores for 100 Reichsmarks he would help the family get out; the alternative was a bunch of very cheap train tickets, cattle-truck class.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, February 20, 2009
Bankrupt Eastern European Banks Require Mega Bailouts to Survive / Economics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Martin Hutchinson writes: We all know about the mess the United States, Britain, Spain and some other countries have gotten themselves into thanks to overenthusiastic housing bubbles.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Geithner vs the American Banking Sector Oligarchs / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Bill Moyers interviews former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), MIT Sloan School of Management professor and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Simon Johnson examines President Obama's plan for economic recovery.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Shopping for Toxic Assets at the "Zombie Bank". Final Chapter of the Credit Crunch? / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Timothy Geithner's new plan is to raise $2.5 trillion or so from the private sector to co-invest with him buying Toxic Assets. That sounds risky; but perhaps the flight to safety is over-priced these days? If so then "safety" is "risky".
But there are a few things I don't understand. Not least that the last time I looked, the main problem with buying those assets was finding anyone who wanted to sell some.
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Friday, February 13, 2009
Obama's Opening Salvo Fails to Inspire Confidence in Financial Markets / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
There is nearly universal agreement that the opening salvo of the Obama Administration's campaign to restore health to the financial system, delivered this week by new Treasury Secretary Geithner, fell with a loud and ugly thud. The most common criticism is that the announcement was short on detail. What is abundantly clear, however, is that the new Administration intends to push spending back up to pre-crash levels and to fill the entire credit void that has disappeared into the black hole of the American financial system. Whether or not the prior levels of spending and lending were justified by market conditions then, or now, appears to be largely unexamined.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, February 13, 2009
Geithners Bank Bailout Plan Gibberish "Not Ready for Prime Time" / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Tuesday was Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's coming out party. He was supposed to outline Obama's Financial Stability Plan to the Senate Banking Committee. Wall Street was looking for clarity, but it didn't get it. Instead, they got 25 minutes of political posturing and blather. The markets went into freefall. By the end of the day, the Dow was down 382 points. It was a complete fiasco.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Will the Economic Stimulus and TARP Banking System Rescue Work? / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
So far, the government has spent $350 billion of the TARP funds to shore up a number of financial institution's equity position. They also loaned money to GM and Chrysler. All this money to help stave off a worse condition. Now the U.S. Congress is about to pass legislation to help stimulate the economy amounting to more than $800 billion. The U.S. is encountering one of the worse recessions ever and the employment picture is getting worse by the week. Moreover, the Federal Reserve has lowered rates to zero to 0.25% range and they are buying securities of many types expanding their balance sheet dramatically.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Geithner's Bailout Plan: Another Recipe for Financial Disaster / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Shah Gilani writes: By relying on asset-backed securities, large amounts of leverage and unregulated hedge funds as its key elements, the U.S. Treasury Department's overhaul of the banking-system bailout plan is essentially relying on some of the same ingredients that caused the financial crisis in the first place.
This time around, someone should take the punch bowl away before the party even gets started. Otherwise, as Yogi Berra once said, it will be “ Déjà vu all over again.”
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