Money and Finance
- Warren Stephens: How Big Banks Threaten Our Economy
As of this past January, any bank operating in the United States with more than $50 billion in assets must have the business equivalent of a living will—plans for what to do in the event of catastrophe. Every well-managed business should have contingencies...
- Icelandic Anger Brings Debt Forgiveness In Best Recovery Story
Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country’s economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger. Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans...
- Banks Start 2012 With A Bang. Why?
Andrew Boord, whom I interview for this blog a couple of years ago (HERE), was quoted in this article. The problem that investors have with the largest banks is that even if you have an MBA or Ph.D in economics, it's difficult to ascertain the true...
- Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion From Fed
Citigroup Inc. (C) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) were the reigning champions of finance in 2006 as home prices peaked, leading the 10 biggest U.S. banks and brokerage firms to their best year ever with $104 billion of profits. By 2008, the housing market’s...
- The Magnetar Trade: How One Hedge Fund Helped Keep The Bubble Going - By Jesse Eisinger And Jake Bernstein
In late 2005, the booming U.S. housing market seemed to be slowing. The Federal Reserve had begun raising interest rates. Subprime mortgage company shares were falling. Investors began to balk at buying complex mortgage securities. The housing bubble,...
Money and Finance
Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks Undisclosed $13B
The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.
The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.
Saved by the bailout, bankers lobbied against government regulations, a job made easier by the Fed, which never disclosed the details of the rescue to lawmakers even as Congress doled out more money and debated new rules aimed at preventing the next collapse.
A fresh narrative of the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 emerges from 29,000 pages of Fed documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and central bank records of more than 21,000 transactions. While Fed officials say that almost all of the loans were repaid and there have been no losses, details suggest taxpayers paid a price beyond dollars as the secret funding helped preserve a broken status quo and enabled the biggest banks to grow even bigger.
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And if you haven't seen the 60 Minutes segment showing that members of Congress are legally allowed to trade on previously non-public information like this, here's a link to it: Congress: Trading stock on inside information?
- Warren Stephens: How Big Banks Threaten Our Economy
As of this past January, any bank operating in the United States with more than $50 billion in assets must have the business equivalent of a living will—plans for what to do in the event of catastrophe. Every well-managed business should have contingencies...
- Icelandic Anger Brings Debt Forgiveness In Best Recovery Story
Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country’s economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger. Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans...
- Banks Start 2012 With A Bang. Why?
Andrew Boord, whom I interview for this blog a couple of years ago (HERE), was quoted in this article. The problem that investors have with the largest banks is that even if you have an MBA or Ph.D in economics, it's difficult to ascertain the true...
- Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion From Fed
Citigroup Inc. (C) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) were the reigning champions of finance in 2006 as home prices peaked, leading the 10 biggest U.S. banks and brokerage firms to their best year ever with $104 billion of profits. By 2008, the housing market’s...
- The Magnetar Trade: How One Hedge Fund Helped Keep The Bubble Going - By Jesse Eisinger And Jake Bernstein
In late 2005, the booming U.S. housing market seemed to be slowing. The Federal Reserve had begun raising interest rates. Subprime mortgage company shares were falling. Investors began to balk at buying complex mortgage securities. The housing bubble,...