I’m not a big fan of Richard Shelby. Nevertheless his remarks to Tim Geithner today deserve notice. “Another thing that the TARP has accomplished is covering up the egregious failures of our banking regulators over the past decade,” Sen. Shelby said at the hearing, where Mr. Geithner was the only witness. “TARP funds have saved […]
Archive for May 20th, 2009
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Playing Games With Appraisals And Value
Posted by Tom Lindmark on May 20th, 2009
I’m starting to see a lot of this, so I thought it worth a short blog at least. Now that houses are starting to sell, at least at the cheap end, there’s a lot of talk about value and how foreclosure sales are not representative of the true value of a house. It’s couched in […]
FOMC’s Dire Recovery Prediction
Posted by Tom Lindmark on May 20th, 2009
The minutes from the April 28-29 FOMC meeting are out and make for some interesting reading. As you can see from the excerpt below, the committee at least thinks we’re in for one long haul. As indicated in table 1 and depicted in figure 1, all FOMC participants projected that real GDP would contract this […]
What California Tells Us About Future Unemployment Rates
Posted by Tom Lindmark on May 20th, 2009
Take a look at these two graphs. The first is the unemployment rate for California since 1980. The second is the national unemployment rate for the same period. Do you notice anything peculiar about the relationship to unemployment in California versus unemployment in the U.S. as a whole? If you look closely, you can see […]
GMAC Sucks In More Federal Dollars
Posted by Tom Lindmark on May 20th, 2009
The black hole also known as the auto industry is about to suck in some more of your money. According to Reuters, the Treasury Department is ready to commit an additional $7.5 billion to GMAC. You may recall that the stress test indicated that GMAC needed an additional $11.5 billion, so this looks like the […]
California Refuses To Clean Up Its Own Mess
Posted by Tom Lindmark on May 20th, 2009
Get ready to open your wallets, Americans. The State of California needs your support. This from Fox: A slate of California state ballot measures backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in an effort to close a massive budget deficit appeared set for defeat, according to projected results reported Tuesday. The projections showed five of the six […]
