On Wednesday, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve announced a plan to boost liquidity in financial markets. Under the plan, private banks will have access to cheap dollars for as long as the global debt crisis rages and they aren’t borrowing from one another. Stock indices responded favorably to the news, but the plan will, at best, only provide short-term relief. (more)
Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan will have his work cut out for him next week when he speaks at an investor conference in New York. (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of troubled banks tracked by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. fell in the April-June quarter, the first quarterly drop in five years. But growth in bank earnings slowed, a sign that the financial industry is feeling the effects of a weak economy. (more)
In a White House blog post on Monday, just hours before President Obama didn’t nominate her as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren warned supporters that danger lurks for her regulatory paean to class warfare. “Make no mistake,” she wrote, “this agency still has enemies in Washington, D.C. And they have a plan.” (more)
LONDON – A former Swiss banker on Monday publicly turned over to WikiLeaks confidential offshore banking details of about 2,000 account holders, setting the stage for new revelations by the whistleblower group. (more)
Stop wasting my time
You know what I want
You know what I need
Or maybe you don’t (more)
In the face of international opprobrium, Iran and North Korea march relentlessly towards joining the small club of nations capable of deploying and selling nuclear weapons. If allowed to succeed, their new status would irrevocably alter the global balance of power as we know it. (more)
Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) — Brian Williams burned through $12,000 on rent for a vacant storefront in the historic district of St. Louis where he planned to open a pizzeria after banks refused him a $35,000 loan, forcing him to delay opening by a year. (more)
When Randy Persten’s mortgage was foreclosed in 2008, he looked at the paperwork and found a mystery. A company he’d never heard of — called Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS — was bringing the foreclosure action against him. (more)
U.S. mortgage rates reached new record lows in the latest week as economic data raised the appeal of safe-haven government debt, according to a survey released on Thursday by Freddie Mac, the second-largest U.S. mortgage finance company. (more)
Late Wednesday afternoon, news leaked that the White House finally made a decision on the appointment of Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor-turned super regulator. And Warren got her wish. Sort of. (more)
After two months bankers would like to forget, Wall Street may need a September to remember to avoid closing the books on the worst quarter for investment banking and trading revenue since the peak of the financial crisis. (more)
Housing policy reform is beginning to take shape. At this point, it looks like both the financial sector and Washington agree that the government must maintain a big role in the mortgage market. The favored strategy to do so thus far appears to be government mortgage guarantees that require a fee from banks that wish to obtain them. It would be kind of like depository insurance, except for mortgages. What could go wrong? Fannie and Freddie (F&F) provide a sufficient explanation. (more)
The housing collapse the U.S. has endured over the past few years has forced the industry to question some of its most basic assumptions. For decades, the market believed that housing couldn’t broadly decline in value, particularly not substantially. It was wrong. We now know that a bubble can actually result in overinflated housing prices and subsequent national home price declines. As banks and lenders adjust, they may have to revisit the mortgage products they used to believe were very safe. Will the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage survive? (more)
Federal and local governments are trying once again to persuade some of the 17 million U.S. adults who rely on check-cashing services to open their own bank accounts. (more)
Congressional districts held by Democrats are taking a harder hit from the housing crisis than those represented by Republicans. (more)
WASHINGTON—Congress approved a rewrite of rules touching every corner of finance, from ATM cards to Wall Street traders, in the biggest expansion of government power over banking and markets since the Depression. (more)
The limitations imposed by the role of the states in the U.S. unemployment insurance system are the reason why a majority of workers are not protected and why even insured workers receive inadequate protection. Steven Attewell writes: “Our reconstruction of the unemployment insurance system should start from three basic principles. First, unemployment is a national problem for our single, national economy, and requires a nation-wide system to respond to it. Second, in order to protect the entire workforce from the sudden shock of wage loss and the economy from the sudden shock of consumer spending collapse, all workers need to be inside the system, contributing and protected. Third, unemployment benefits should be set at a sufficient level to keep individuals and families from falling into poverty and should be automatically extended in periods of economic decline in job losses, when normal expectations that people can find new jobs no longer apply.” (more)
NEW YORK — It’s cocktail hour on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and dozens of rich New Yorkers are gathered around a grand piano, sipping white wine in the living room of an elegant high-rise apartment. There is plenty of gossip to be heard, but this is not a social event. The city’s moneyed elite have come to commiserate about their growing distaste for their longtime congresswoman, Carolyn B. Maloney — and to open their wallets for the unlikely 34-year-old challenger they hope will defeat her. (more)
Congress will break this weekend not quite done on “financial reform.” A defeat of this bill would help avoid a double dip recession. The bill is dishonest because it does not deal with Fannie or Freddie, the main engines of our collapse. The bill’s deafening silence on these two institutions means it is posturing, not helping. In the short term, which is what you would think Congress cares about, the bill is deflationary because it takes precious capital from the banking industry while cutting alternatives available to consumers. It is not a coincidence that the stock market is breathing heavily and making new lows as the prospects for this “overhaul” have brightened. (more)
