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Monthly Archives: September 2008

The future of the Division of Market Regulation

You can’t kiss goodbye to the last two important investment banks without noting that the house is empty,” said David Becker, a former SEC general counsel who is now a partner at Clear Gottlieb Steen and Hamilton in Washington. “It’s a downward spiral where the less significant the population you regulate, the less your available [...]

The possible virtues of “small enough to fail”


Holy hemlock, Batman!

The Federal Reserve Board on Sunday approved, pending a statutory five-day antitrust waiting period, the applications of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to become bank holding companies.

Real Time Economics : Treasury’s Financial-Bailout Proposal to Congress

Make no small plans, they have no power to move men’s minds. Daniel Burnham

This bill gives the Secretary of the Treasury 90 days to write rules on how he is going to spend $700 billion over two years buying bad loans and mortgage backed securities originated before last week. Pretty much all you need to [...]

More than a bailout or rescue

It is very likely that Congress will pass a bill next week granting the Treasury authority to borrow up to $700 billion to buy troubled mortgage loans and mortgage backed securities. This program can provide hope as well as relief.
Hope for families, neighborhoods, communities, employment, the economy, the environment and energy independence.
How? That’s a tall [...]

Arts and Letters: Freeing the Elephants: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker


Instant New Deal

The government is working on programs that could represent the biggest intervention in financial markets since the 1930s, including a mechanism to take bad assets off the balance sheets of financial companies.

Paulson doctrine will save the economy — for Obama - MarketWatch

Because this crisis — the death knell for the idea that markets and Wall Street can police themselves — is more closely connected to the current administration and John McCain’s party than Obama’s Democrats. A new order is shaping up in financial services, and it will require an entirely new regulatory structure.

Too good not to be true

A rumor (that’s all it is, a rumor) in current circulation has it that the sharp decline in the stock prices of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley is the result of short selling. Each other. I have a lot of respect for both institutions and I know many business colleagues at Goldman in their asset [...]

FT.com / In depth - Panic grips credit markets

Barometers of financial stress hit record peaks across the world. Yields on short-term US Treasuries hit their lowest level since the London Blitz, while gold had its biggest one-day gain ever in dollar terms. Lending between banks, in effect, stopped.”