The passing of Senator Edward Kennedy threatens to shake up committee chairs in the Senate and in the process may deal the banks the upper hand in their fight with new regulation. Senator Christopher Dodd who chairs the Senate Banking Committee is in line to succeed Kennedy as chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and […]
Archive for August 26th, 2009
Committee Shuffling In The Senate May Spell Trouble For Bank Regulation
Foxwoods Casino Restructuring Debt
The NYT is reporting that Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut has retained advisers to help it restructure its debt. The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, the owner of the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Ledyard, Conn., said on Wednesday that it was seeking to restructure its debt, as casinos worldwide grapple with slumping business. The tribe said in a […]
Some Surprising Data On Federal Wages
Conor Clark posted one of these two graphs on his blog yesterday. They were sent to him by the Cato Institute. Take a look. Both Cato and Connor offer their interpretations. Connor makes some reasonable points about the relative skill level of federal workers and rightly points out that many live in high cost areas […]
The FDIC Compromises On Private Equity Bank Ownership
Faced with a dwindling universe of buyers for the banks it takes over, the FDIC today agreed to significant revisions in previously announced restrictions on the acquisition of banks by private equity firms. The agency had indicated it would require the acquiring PE firms to maintain a Tier 1 capital ratio of 15% but reduced […]
The NYT Discovers Option ARMs
The subject of Option ARMs has been torn apart every which way in the blogosphere. Yours truly and many others have sacrificed unconscionable amounts of pixels in pursuit of one more post. Apparently, the MSM wasn’t reading. It seems that the New York Times has just discovered the subject. James Leland has a new story […]
France’s Bonus Rules: What Were They Thinking?
Talk about turning lemonade into lemons. France was poised to pick up a lot of financial service sector jobs as a result of the UK malaise and managed yesterday to convince anyone with an ounce of sense to avoid the country like the plague. Bowing to political pressure, I assume, the government of that country […]
New Home Sales And Durable Goods Data
New home sales and durable goods orders were up sharply although as you shall see there is less there than meets the eye. Durable Goods I always find this number to be about the clunkiest and least reliable of the government statistics. Today’s numbers prove my point. Overall orders for durable goods in July were […]