rdan hat tip Tim Schilling

a whittle by ilsm National Security pork! I came across this at a National Security blog: In this case congress is directing that Air Force buy long lead parts to build 20 more F-22 than defense wants. Certainly the fighter mob in Air Force wants more toys, and the industry wants more revenue. This sets […]

rdan I have no idea how this transfer would be done if the funding happens for high mileage gpm and alternative fueled cars ($25 billion), or if it is accurate as an idea. Not having read the bill I would not know if money is restricted to the US. It does make sense to fund […]

By Robert Waldmann Felix Salmon explains how to make a synthetic bond. you buy a synthetic IBM five-year bond instead, taking advantage of the much more liquid CDS market. Essentially, you take the $100 million that you were going to spend on IBM bonds, and you put it into a special-purpose entity called, say, Fred. […]

rdan Financial Times shows us that One day after announcing strict limits on salaries and bonuses for its top tier of executives, AIG revealed that some of those executives will receive millions in “retention bonuses” next year.Inflatable Tiger Tunnel bady In a regulatory filing on Wednesday, the insurance group disclosed that Jay Wintrob, an executive […]

rdan Here is a look at the history of limiting paychecks after a bailout…not such a promising outlook for those wanting to do so. Tax History Project Too Much: The Historical Link Between Bailouts and Pay CapsDate: Oct. 6, 2008 Full Text Published by Tax AnalystsTM by Joseph J. Thorndike Complaints about outsized executive pay […]

Decline and fall of western civilization provides another look at repo fails in the US Treasury bond market, up to $2 trillion recently.

Ken Houghton CR beat me to commenting on this Mankiw whine post, partially because I couldn’t think of anything reasonable to say about it. (CR could. That’s why he gets the big bucks.) But now that CR has done the heavy lifting, let’s look at the other aspect: Mankiw’s standard: Based a standard ranking of […]

Robert Waldmann has become interested in Credit Default Swaps. I’m not just wondering whether they played a major role in destroying the world financial system or were just along for the housing bubble, MBS, CDO ride. I also wonder whether the acronym for the plural should be CDS or CDSs or even CDSes. I’m glad […]

Glenn Greenwald at Salon opines on the nature of BDS and the necessity of having major players agree and augment his statements and viewpoints, including the NYT. BDS has much merit in objective terms on many issues, but as one man, even the President, he hardly did his stuff alone, or against major headwinds from […]