a rate hike.
Federal Reserve
The Race to Resign: Bernanke vs Geithner
You know it’s just a matter of time before one of these guys walks.
AIG Counterparties "Demanded" Full Value, and other perversions
The NY Fed’s AIG deal was among the worst decisions of the era. Docs have now been turned over to the House ahead of next week’s hearings.
Bespoke's 2010 Roundtable: The Outlook From Your Favorite Bloggers
The Bespoke Investment Group just posted a killer 2010 Roundtable, including the views of some of the best financial bloggers out there. I was honored to be included along with Eddy Elfenbein, Paul Kedrosky, Bill Luby, Michael Panzner, Mebane Faber, Charles Kirk and all the rest.
FOMC Statement Parsing
The FOMC’s non-event policy statement just came out. Needless to say, no change in rates. Here are a few snippets… Interest rates will remain near zero “for an extended period”. “Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in November suggests that economic activity has continued to pick up and that the deterioration in…
4 and a Half Minutes With Jim Rogers
The famed commodities investor and world traveler sounds off on his wish for the abolition of the Fed.
7 Terms and Phrases We Should Bury With 2009
Every passing year gives rise to any number of mind-bogglingly annoying terms and phrases. 2009 was no exception. I submit the following terms as ready-for-obsolescence as the year draws to a close, let’s leave these behind as we head into 2010: Shovel-Ready Let me help you out with this: there is no such thing as…
Droppin' Knowledge: Henry Kaufman on the Politicization of the Fed
Henry Kaufman has a great op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning in which he expresses his near-term fears about a politicized Federal Reserve. In the course of making his case that some political involvement in monetary policy is probably unavoidable, he gives us a quick history lesson on how US Presidents have historically…
Interview With The Ghost Of Ayn Rand
As regular readers know, I am often visited by ghosts when I work late at my office in the historic Helmsley Building. I recently had an encounter with none other than the ghost of Ayn Rand, the creator of the objectivist philosophical movement and author of Atlas Shrugged, an ideological novel that argued for absolute…
Private Sector Cutting Debt…Uncle Sam? Not So Much.
Floyd Norris shows us this morning that while virtually every facet of the private sector in America has been scaling back on debt, the Federal Government has rushed headlong into the breach to fill that void. From the New York Times: Rather than crowding out the private sector, Uncle Sam is now standing in for…
