Mortgage Modification NOT!
WE ARE A DEPT COLLECTOR. THIS IS AN ATTEMPT TO COLLECT A DEBT...WE HAVE TOLD A CREDIT BUREAU ABOUT A LATE PAYMENT, MISSED PAYMENT OR OTHER DEFAULT ON YOUR ACCOUNT. THIS INFORMATION MAY BE REFLECTED ON...
View ArticleAn alternative to TARP: cut out the middlemen.
There are alternatives to our current financial system as a source of credit for businesses. Instead of the government lending money to banks to then lend to individual businesses, why not lend...
View ArticleA Better Bailout
As I predicted, the banks took their capital injections and sat on it. Their capitalization numbers look better. They are much less in danger of insolvency. Bully for them, but they're still not...
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Meanwhile, Major Protests In Iceland (image heavy)
After a few years of not taking a long vacation by myself, I decided in early December to visit the peaceful island of Iceland in January. Yes, I realize it might seem insane to be here in January,...
View ArticleLet the banks fail? Bad, bad idea
I’ve read on this site – largely in the comments section of financial-oriented diaries, and occasionally in a diary itself – lots of calls to let the ‘bad banks’ fail. While the attitude is...
View ArticleI'm Throwing an Axe at the TV the Next Time Someone Says "Bush Kept Us Safe"
No seriously, I'm prepared to throw an axe if I hear these words one more time:"He kept us safe."This sentence is now the last refuge of the most die-hard supporters of George W. Bush to revise history...
View ArticleMortgage Modification NOT. ...
WE ARE A DEPT COLLECTOR. THIS IS AN ATTEMPT TO COLLECT A DEBT...WE HAVE TOLD A CREDIT BUREAU ABOUT A LATE PAYMENT, MISSED PAYMENT OR OTHER DEFAULT ON YOUR ACCOUNT. THIS INFORMATION MAY BE REFLECTED ON...
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When did the financial crisis really start?
As the graph below shows, the financial crisis appears to be almost 2 years old now, with CDOs emissions stopping growing brutally duing the winter of 2007, and collapsing during the summer. This was...
View ArticleArmChairAction:Help Convict Phil Gramm!
Currently over at the Time Magazine Website you can participate in the arm chair action of the week. Time magazine has set up a "25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis" article and NOW, for a...
View ArticleProposal: Foreclosure Mitigation, Credit Crisis, and MBS valuation
The criticism of the Obama administration’s rollout of the financial system recovery plan, as presented by Sec. Geithner, focused on the "lack of details" and that it left too much "uncertainty" in...
View ArticleBank Nationalization and You
The banking system is collapsing. Each day brings revelations of insane executive pay packages to reward substandard management practices, leading to predictable systemic financial failure and...
View ArticleFrontline vs. House of Cards
PBS ran the 1st run of Inside the Meltdown tonight. A brief synopsis: The story begins with the lead up to Bear Stearns failure. The program walks through the Paulson, Bernanke, Geithner decisions (as...
View ArticleCredit Crisis: A little Economic Porn w/poll and stuff
Andrew Sullivan has a fun video on his site from Jonathan Jarvis:The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
View ArticleBank Nationalization? No, Hostile Takeover. The Market Based Solution That...
Be it named "preprivatization,""receivership,""nationalization," etc. I recognize the fear of an ad hoc rescue plan for the banks that results in short term government control. If the government takes...
View ArticleAmEx paying card holders to close their accounts
NEW YORK (Reuters) - American Express Co, battered by mounting credit card losses, is offering $300 to a limited number of U.S. card holders who pay off their balances and close their accounts, the...
View ArticleChocolate Covered Cotton: An Update
From the Financial Times, via the shrill one:Insight: Time to expose those CDOs
View ArticleCredit Crisis explained chart and video: we in deep doodoo!
This chart below really explains the crisis we are in and how complex it is.Obama really has his work cut out for him.Jump...
View ArticleBanking Crisis: Outraged at the Reality? Should be! Solution, maybe?
A lot has been written has about the "banking crisis", the "credit crisis", "foreclosure crisis", etc. A lot of the talk is diluted by discussions of derivatives (CDS's), irresponsible homeowners,...
View ArticleCreating Your Own Disaster For Capitalism
Bondad thinks the credit market is thawing. I'm not so sure that's going to last long at if we don't abolish unrelgulated CDS trading. Most of us know that unregulated CDS are bad. I'm not sure many of...
View ArticleAn Alternate Solution to the Credit Crisis.
As thereisnospoon explained for us on Monday, the credit crisis is poised to seriously bite the economy in the ass if something isn't done soon. It was a great diary, and I won't re-hash here the...
View ArticleAIG BONUSES: Corporate Media wants to have a Witch Hunt, in a Town Full of...
Greedy businessmen were getting filthy rich off unregulated financial product sales!? GASP! HOW SHOCKING!? How could this have happened!? And On OBAMA's watch too! It's a MYSTERY!!Gather round...
View ArticleThe Most Important Financial Crisis Article You Haven't Read
Warning: This post is complicated, and will make little sense without a little prior reading. If you are unfamiliar with the detailed causes and effects of the financial crisis, especially regarding...
View ArticleThe Credit Crisis Explained
Sorry for the short diary. It's basically a way for me to post a link to an excellent video I just watched.It provides a simple explanation of the increasingly complicated credit crisis. Since many...
View ArticleBack from NACA and the Home Purchase Info Session
On Thursday I wrote a thread about NACA. I am trying to buy my first Condo. A friend of mine suggested them. The first step is to go to their informational meeting. And so this post is about my visit...
View ArticleLet Treasury Know You Want the Credit Crisis to End
"And so I can't just press a button and suddenly have the bankers do exactly what I want " (Barack Obama, 4/29/09, 100 day press conference)Let's help him in any way we can. Not only are banks causing...
View ArticleMusical Chairs - A Way Out of the Credit Crisis
In order to provide an incentive for banks to make more loans available, the bottom 10% of banks in terms of lending over a certain period of time (say a month or two) shall be dissolved and be...
View ArticleBank of America--Now they offer me a balance transfer
A few weeks ago I wrote a diary about Bank of America, where I wrote about how they decided to raise my interest rate from 7.99% to 13.65% even though I never used the card and was paying off the...
View ArticleWall St ripping off the taxpayer again?
According to a story on Bloomberg this morning, banks which pay back their TARP funds may "shortchange taxpayers by almost $10bn" by buying back warrants at below their true value.
View ArticleThe Credit Crisis is Ginormous!
The Largest Outlay In American History http://www.ritholtz.com/...Wow!I would argue that the most serious threat to the United States is not someone hiding in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan, but our...
View ArticleThe Myth of New Paradigms
There's an interesting effort to paint those of us who believe in market-based economics who aren't of the laissez-faire, Chicago, Randian, Friedmanite school of thought as claiming there's a new...
View ArticleBetting on Americans to die: Nothing could possibly go wrong with that...
On the front page of the NY Times today is the story that the Big Financial Wizards, whom the American public has just bailed out to the tune of Trillions, sees their next Big Financial Innovation in...
View ArticleIf we're going to subsidize real estate, let's do it effectively
For years, taxpayers have provided significant, direct, regressive transfer payments to real estate investors. The two primary forms of this have been the home mortgage interest deduction and special...
View Article"Michael Moore's Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now"
You've Seen the Movie -- Now It's Time to ACT!Thursday, October 22, 2009Friends,It's the #1 question I'm constantly asked after people see my movie: "OK -- so NOW what can I DO?!"You want something to...
View ArticleThe Case for Immediate, Targeted Taxation
One of the paradoxes of our economic crisis that has intrigued me most is that liquidity is both in short supply and is at the same time overwhelming the system. One of the main drivers of financial...
View ArticleThe AIG story in plain English
Bobswern has a great summary and crosspost up about some of the most recent developments and exploration of the ongoing saga of what happens when massive transfers of wealth are steeped in secrecy....
View ArticleICELAND AWAITS?: ARE SIMILAR DEBTS the REAL reason for Dems Four Year Delay...
Iceland Votes Today: Will Each Happily Payoff $28,000 of "Their" Multinational Corporations' Gambling Debts? Americalanders should be watching the situation for Icelanders today VERY closely, because...
View ArticleIndependent Financial Guidance Key to Making Americans "Financially Fit"
When you trace the roots of the record-busting foreclosure rate and the havoc that has wrought on the American economy over the last few years, San Francisco’s mailboxes probably don’t come to mind as...
View ArticleIs Simon Johnson right? Is this "Our Pecora Moment?"
"There is fraud at the heart of Wall Street, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission," Simon Johnson tells us in his Baseline Scenario post on Saturday morning. Our Pecora Moment By Simon...
View ArticleBuried Department of Energy sponsored report gathering dust on shelf, [How to...
During the past few months two Peak Oil studies/mentions have garnered attention, mainly due to the sources. One was a U.S. Department of Defense Joint Forces Command report warning about Peak Oil and...
View ArticleBail-outs and Spills: Crisis of Experts, Education and Privatization
One frequent complain since the credit crisis has been the fact that both the Bush and Obama administrations put Wall Street insiders into the government to plan and execute saving the economy....
View ArticleCredit Crisis Solved By New Jersey Accountant
RECESSION IS OVER! World Rejoices • Blue Skies AheadRichieville News Service- PARSIPPANYSpontaneous celebrations broke out in major cities and small hamlets across the globe as the news spread that Rav...
View ArticleThree years later and nothing has been learned
Three years ago this past Saturday the economic crisis struck. That's why the comments by Alan Greenspan the very next day on Meet the Press are worth noting. "There is no doubt that the federal...
View Articleif deflation is bad, bailouts are worse
I've been a pretty ardent defender of Paul Krugman as I've explored online political advocacy and discourse over the past couple years. I really like his fundamental proposition that political economy...
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Outrageous: FED Paying Banks to NOT Lend Money
Despite the huge drop-off in lending to small businesses and its harmful effect on the economy, the Federal Reserve is paying banks to not lend:One of the most outrageous "open secrets" of U.S....
View ArticleRating Agencies & Bonds
Currently bond investors are driving up government debt around the world. Their focus today is the EU, tomorrow perhaps the USA (which has been downgraded by the S&P already). The value of...
View ArticleThe Evolution of Capitalism
Much has been said recently in the Financial times series on capitalism and in letters in response to this series about the history and future of capitalism. Most of the proposals for change have...
View ArticleBanks the Problem Not Governments
We can change governments, but we cannot change corporations. Revolutions bought with blood our right to change our government, but only the 1% change change the corporations' policies. Mr....
View ArticleSecret History of Credit Crisis
In 2005 I wrote a letter to the Financial Times describing the unsustainable nature of the financial instruments (derivatives) then being sold as insurance to protect investors from losses in...
View ArticleIt could have been prevented.........
In my last diary I explained how we got into the 2008 financial disaster.Even before they called the greatest economic disaster since the great depression things were going down hill. I might get...
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