Archive for October, 2008
Swap Lines Extended To At-Risk Countries
As we expected (see blog post of October 22nd, “Not a Slow News Day”), the Fed has extended a lifeline facility to a number of pivotal, mainly emerging economies (Brazil, South Korea, Mexico and Singapore), whose currencies have been falling through the floor as a result of mass-repatriations under the impetus of the rush to ...Read more.
Commercial Paper (Max Fraad Wolff)
A primer on commercial paper by the wonderful Max Fraad Wolff, special to the D&S website: Financialization’s (Latest) Weak Link There may be no better illustration of the staggering pain emanating from financial market turbulence than the carnage experienced recently in commercial paper markets worldwide. Commercial paper (often abbreviated as “CP” in the financial press) ...Read more.
Movement on the Bailout Front
This could be pretty big news. From Reuters: Bair says FDIC’s powers could extend to insurers Wed Oct 29, 2008 11:34am EDT By Karey Wutkowski WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp’s powers could be expanded if Congress decides to shift insurance companies from state regulation to federal regulation, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said ...Read more.
Explaining Yesterday's Mega-Rally
Many people may still be a little puzzled by the impressive surge on Wall Street yesterday, despite the clear preopnderance of gloomy news (though taking into account the near-certainty of a big Fed cut today). The answer involves the yen carry trade, about which we posted a couple of items last weekend. Today’s Financial Times ...Read more.
Was Wall Street's Banking Crisis Predictable?
This is from former D&S collective member Bob Feldman: If you check out back issues of D&S and books like The Trouble With Capitalism: An Enquiry Into The Causes of Global Economic Failure by Henry Shutt, Origins of the Crash by Roger Lowenstein and American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips, you can see that Wall Street’s ...Read more.
A Financial Meltdown 30 Years in the Making
This is from the fantastic Labor Notes: By Mark Brenner They break it, and we’re stuck with the bill. In less than two weeks Congress lined up $700 billion to bail out the nation’s bankers, leaving millions of homeowners on the sidelines, facing foreclosure, bankruptcy, or both. Somehow the argument that “it may seem unfair, ...Read more.
Closures & Layoffs (Oct. 19-25)
Hat-tip to Bob Feldman for letting us know about the excellent regular updates on layoffs and closures from Mark Heschmeyer of Co-Star Group. We hope to link to this every week, starting this week. Closures & Layoffs (Oct. 19-25): Canning Plants: We’re Not Talkin’ Vegetables A Weekly Report on Future Corporate Downsizings In this week’s ...Read more.
Something Has To Give
This posting is from D&S collective member and frequent blogger Larry Peterson. To see more of his posts, click here. Last week global markets sold off big-time on Friday, and observers of the financial scene were puzzled due to the fact that no specific event seemed to set off such panic. Today, on the contrary, ...Read more.
Bank of England Doubles Bailout Estimate
Apologies for the error in the first sentence (they had a US dollar figure in the original article, which is contradicted by the title). From The Independent: BoE warns credit crisis losses could hit 2.8trn Pounds By Sean O’Grady, Economics EditorTuesday, 28 October 2008 Global bank losses as a result of write-offs on mortgage-backed and ...Read more.
Letters of Credit and Trade Finance Freeze
From Naked Capitalism, another excellent, sobering post. Gives you an idea of the increasingly all-embracing extent of the crisis: Confirmation of the Role of Financing Difficulties in Collapsing Trade Volumes One of our pet themes in recent weeks is that the fall in trade traffic, indicated and possibly overstated by a dramatic fall in the ...Read more.
