Rt @econstyleguide Only the speechless are dumb, the well-dressed (and a few devices) smart and the insane mad.
10 minutes ago
Category Archive: Finance & Markets
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Why the Ratings Agencies Deserve the Death Penalty
The very belated Federal civil suit against Standard & Poors is based on one very specific deal, with an extremely egregious email trail. Looking at the entirety of the crisis, the Credit Rating Agencies (the properly blamed CRA) were major players. Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s as well as the much smaller Fitch ratings agencies [...]
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ECON Motion Rejecting EMIR Regulatory Technical Standards
On 5 February 2013, the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON) of the EU Parliament published a motion for a resolution regarding two of the Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) produced by ESMA under EMIR. The relevant RTS are: regulatory technical standards on indirect clearing arrangements, the clearing obligation, the public register, access to a trading venue, non-financial [...]
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Oil Majors Support CO2 Tax in Canada
Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), France’s Total SA and Cenovus Energy Inc. (CVE) are all actually seeking the imposition of a tax on carbon dioxide emissions in Canada. It’s not a change of heart, it’s about the bottom line. Here’s the deal: These companies are planning to convert billions of barrels of Canadian oils sands [...]
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Should We Take the Department of Justice’s Suit Against S&P Seriously?
I know cynicism-hardened Naked Capitalism readers will expect the answer to the question in the headline to be “no”. But based on a summary of the filing at Bloomberg (and having conferred with lawyers on this beat), the answer looks more like “possibly yes”. The reason to be skeptical of lawsuits against ratings agencies is [...]
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Is This a Good Time to Buy Stocks?
With the stock market setting new 5-year highs, I was interested to take another look at some of the long-term fundamentals underlying equity values. On the one hand, I’m expecting the real economy to be doing better in the second half of the year than it is right now, and inflation and interest rates to [...]
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Why Olive Oil, Good for the Body, is Becoming Bad for the Pocketbook
It seems there almost nothing bad about olive oil. It is delicious, of course, and if you are a connoisseur, you can get as much pleasure from a fine bottle of olive oil as from a premium Brunello di Montalcino. A high content of monosaturated fats makes olive oil among the most heart-healthy of all [...]
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Yglesias Pours the Geithner, Holder, Breuer (GHB) Banksters Immunity Doctrine in Our Drinks
It’s early, but Salon has published on January 30, 2013 either the funniest or saddest column of the year to date: “Are Banks Too Big To Prosecute?” The column is attributed to Matthew Yglesias, a blogger who studied philosophy as an undergraduate. It could be a brilliantly ironic satire of the Geithner, Holder and Breuer doctrine of [...]
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Major Asset Classes: January 2013 Performance Review
Risky assets generally started the new year on a strong note, led by handsome gains for equities in the US and the developed world. The leading source of red ink last month: government bonds in developed markets. Overall, the unmanaged market-value weighted Global Market Index (GMI) gained 2.5% in January, building on a strong run [...]
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Intro to Modern Money Theory by Haiku Charlatan
Intro to Modern Money Theory Here’s a brilliantly funny way to teach or learn Modern Money Theory, by Haiku Charlatan. I think it is mostly correct, but was laughing too hard to be objective. Grab a beer and watch this. Intro to MMT
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Banks Don’t Commit Fraud; Banksters Commit Fraud: Response to Yglesias
The often interesting Matthew Yglesias wonders “Are Banks Too Big To Prosecute?” See here. Here’s his thesis. Sure, Megabanks committed tons of fraud. But we cannot prosecute banks for the fraud because that would bring them down. And the bigger they are, the more fraud they perpetrated, but the bigger the insolvency hole if we [...]
