Via Benzinga, L. Randall Wray notes more of the same for socializing the costs of our financial woes: In truly depressing news, Secretary Treasury Geithner announced he was funneling $2.8 billion more bail-out funds to Bank of America. In the deal, Fannie and Freddie would agree to abandon claims that they had been sold trash […]

Max Sawicky, on his Twitter feed, sends us to this classic piece from Donald Luskin Believe me, if we raise taxes on hedge-fund managers we’ll get fewer hedge-fund managers. Today, with lots of hedge-fund managers trading all the time and keeping markets efficient, stocks are at record highs around the globe and markets are deeper, […]

by Linda Beale crossposted with Ataxingmatter Senate passes HR 4173 finance reform conference report[updated to add information on Geithner’s opposition to Warren 7:12 pm] On a 60-39 vote, the US Senate passed the Dodd-Frank H.R. 4173 financial reform conference report today. While the bill imposes some new restrictions and creates a consumer protection agency, most […]

reads Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias (between the two of them they have more years than I do). Klein thinks the FDIC works well. Yglesias notes that it keeps eating banks every Friday and has doubts about the quality of its prudential regulation. I will argue that the FDIC has more of an incentive to […]

NBER paper of the day: We analyze asset-backed commercial paper conduits which played a central role in the early phase of the financial crisis of 2007-09. We document that commercial banks set up conduits to securitize assets while insuring the newly securitized assets using credit guarantees. The credit guarantees were structured to reduce bank capital […]

Robert Waldmann Barry Ritholtz argues that the problem with mortgages was underwriting standards and not securitization. He appeals to the very great authority of Monty Python. Click the link. Ritholtz seems not to be familiar with this new idea in economic theory called “Nash equilibrium”. Over -rated yes. Totally irrelevant not so much. One can […]

Ken Houghton wants to sidebar today into looking at the general application and implications of an Accounting Identity: Assets = Liabilities + Equity (A=L+E, or the ALE Rule). Let us assume that, since the housing bubble burst, I believe that my house has fallen in value by too much. I would understand a 20% decline, […]