Blogs

When math meets political dogma

Submitted by on

"The Church at the time of Galileo kept much more closely to reason than did Galileo himself, and she took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo's teaching too. Her verdict against Galileo was rational and just, and the revision of this verdict can be justified only on the grounds of what is politically opportune."
- Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), 1990

You would think in today's world that people would accept that simple math isn't something you debate. You would think that people would accept that 2 + 2 = 4 and then move on.
But that's not how the world works. Galileo failed when he tried to argue physics with theologians. The problem today isn't physics - it is simple addition - and the theologians of today are political.

Are Financial Conglomerates in a Position to Lend?

Are financial conglomerates in a position to increase lending? Do they still have too many "toxic assets" on the books plus a lot of their own debt on the books which in turn is causing them to not be able to provide any no loans? Are we (households) in a position to incur more debt? If the trillions of dollars that Federal Reserve and Treasury pumped into the financial system to keep interest rates low is not jump starting new lending, did we just waste trillions of dollars? These are the questions that came to mind after reading this Bloomberg article and the Federal Reserve Bank's April 2009 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey.

Economic things I learned or overheard this Memorial Day

I’m a sucker for barbeques, especially good ones.  Normally I’m not a “family” person, but I am a people person.  When it comes to barbeques, though I tend to even go to the ones my family puts out.  This year I hosted, unfortunately the weather was not on my side and being someone into risk management I decided to hold an “indoor bbq.”  The food, as always, was good, but my other type of appetite was also satisfied, my hunger for news and tid bits. 

Debunking the Myth of the Financial Markets

Suggestions to solve the financial crises by basically shutting down most of Wall Street are always shouted down by howls of “How are companies going to raise money?” or “How are people going to invest in companies?”

Well, take a good, long look at this graph, which shows the percentage of capital expenditures by U.S. non-financial companies that was raised in U.S. financial markets from 1952 to 2006.

NFC Capex from Financial Markets

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Senate Banking Committee Hearing

Submitted by on

On May 20th, U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner testified before the Senate Banking Committee on TARP Oversight.

Our Senators, bi-partisan, asked some very good common sense questions.

This hearing was right before Geithner announced they will be using the
Wall Street Plan (read Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase) for OTC derivatives trading, a seemingly contradiction of his earlier May 13th proposal.

Below are excerpts from the committee questioning.

Senator Mark Warner asks why AIG paid out on credit default swaps at 100%, in particular to Goldman Sachs:

Friday Movie Night - Frontline's Sick Around America Edition

Submitted by on

It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

 

Tonight's video is Frontline's Sick Around America.

 

Now the start of this video shows someone from Microsoft who clearly is not under the age of 30. We know this is false and Microsoft uses thousands of H-1B workers, contractors and other methods to labor arbitrage workers and deny full participation in benefits. So take their corporate health care plug with a grain of salt.

 

Pages