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Daily Archives: December 23, 2008

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Madoff’s Holiday Gift

Posted: December 23, 2008 at 6:31 am

It is easy to see the Madoff affair as all bad. Regulators missed critical warnings. How many other cases like this are still hiding under rocks? Foundations and personal fortunes ...
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Consumer Despair Now Spans The Globe

Posted: December 23, 2008 at 6:11 am

Every economist worth his salt assumes that consumer confidence and consumer spending are hitting multi-decade lows in Japan, the EU, and the US. There has been some hope that the ...
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M&A, One Of The Last Hopes Of Banks, Gives Up The Ghost

Posted: December 23, 2008 at 5:48 am

The profitable businesses of granting mortgages and investing in related derivatives is gone now. So are the large, profitable loans given to major corporations and the equity and debt underwriting ...
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Does Surge In Mortgage Activity Mean More Defaults Down The Road?

Posted: December 23, 2008 at 5:38 am

Lower interest rates on home loans are causing people to run to the banks. Thirty-year fixed-rate mortgages are as low as 5.2%. According to several media accounts, banks cannot handle ...
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What Are The US Operations Of The Big Three Worth? Over $100 Billion

Posted: December 23, 2008 at 5:23 am

The easy answer to the question of what US operations of The Big Three are worth is that they are worth nothing. That assessment is entirely accurate based on the ...
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Media Digest 12/23/2008 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg

Posted: December 23, 2008 at 3:51 am

According to Reuters, a survey of 22 countries show three-quarters of households cutting spending and a sharp drop of confidence in emerging economies.Reuters writes that the US sold record debt ...
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Asia Markets And Europe Open 12/23/2008

Posted: December 23, 2008 at 3:14 am

Markets in Asis were mostly off with Japan closed.The Hang Seng fell 3% to 14,183. The Shanghai Composite was down 4.6% to 1,897.In Europe at the open, the FTSE was ...
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