I caught a good portion of Obama’s press conference this evening. As usual it was a virtuoso performance so far as performances are judged. Realistically, it didn’t add anything new to the debate and he clearly now views this as a campaign to get public opinion on his side. I could go on about this […]
Archive for July 22nd, 2009
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Unemployment: How Much Will It Turn Around?
Posted by Tom Lindmark on July 22nd, 2009
If you thought that the unemployment situation seemed particularly acute given the overall size of the recession, your suspicions are correct. This downturn is hitting worker harder than usual and it probably spells long-term problems. From the WSJ: The job market is doing even worse than the overall economy, prompting concern inside and outside the […]
Subprime Myths
Posted by Tom Lindmark on July 22nd, 2009
Yesterday, I had a post about “liar loans” and some surprising information that had come out of research into a fairly large bucket of such loans. The real point of the article was that we really have a lot of preconceived ideas about what caused the mortgage meltdown, but unfortunately little data to back up […]
Barney Frank Girds For Battle
Posted by Tom Lindmark on July 22nd, 2009
Barney Frank officially declared war today. He’s opening the front for the passage of the legislation needed to create the new consumer financial protection agency. From Politico.com: The banks have made killing the consumer agency their “highest priority,” Frank said, so he says he’s going to give them the national debate they seem so eager […]
The Coming Commercial Real Estate Bailout
Posted by Tom Lindmark on July 22nd, 2009
Whenever Bernanke heads to the Hill for these Humphrey Hawkins road shows there’s a theme that pops out amid all the banality. It’s usually indicative of the hot button for politicians and these days that theme provides a good clue of the next potential bailout. The theme this week was commercial real estate. It’s almost […]
Goldman Coughs Up $1.1 Billion For The Treasury
Posted by Tom Lindmark on July 22nd, 2009
Goldman Sachs has paid the government $1.1 billion to redeem the warrants it issued in conjunction with the TARP money that was injected into the company. Goldman originally borrowed was strongly encouraged to accept $10 billion from the government in the initial round of TARP advances. In addition to the price it paid to the […]
What Can China Do With $2 Trillion
Posted by Tom Lindmark on July 22nd, 2009
So China now says it’s going to use its $2 trillion in reserves to purchase real assets instead of just accumulating foreign exchange reserves and financial assets. Good luck! Two trillion dollars is an awful lot of money. In fact, it’s almost not possible to spend that much money without buying a big piece of […]
