Fannie Mae

Some appear to believe that "confidence in the banks" can be rebuilt by a new round of good economic news, by rising stock prices, by the reassurances of high officials – and by not looking too closely at the underlying evidence of fraud, abuse, deception and deceit. As you pursue your investigations, you will undermine, and I believe you may destroy, that illusion. But you have to act. The true alternative is a failure extending over time from the economic to the political system. Just as too few predicted the financial crisis, it may be that too few are today speaking frankly about where a failure to deal with the aftermath may lead. In this situation, let me suggest, the country faces an existential threat. Either the legal system must do its work. Or the market system cannot be restored. There must be a thorough, transparent, effective, radical cleaning of the financial sector and also of those public officials who failed the public trust. The financiers must be made to feel, in their bones, the power of the law. And the public, which lives by the law, must see very clearly and unambiguously that this is the case. Thank you. - Professor James Galbraith

Lars Schall of MMNews Germany has recently interviewed many outspoken critics of the inner workings of our global financial system including former Federal Housing Commissioner and Solari Inc. President Catherine Austin Fitts and Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri,Kansas City (UMKC) William K. Black. Below is my recent interview with Mr. Schall.

Yet another big name says this could be worse than the Great Depression ...

Isn't $145 billion to save these relics enough? Why don't we ask instead: What good do they do? and, What was their role in causing the crisis? Get rid of Fannie and Freddie.

Nothing to say on this really, except that Bernanke will be more than happy to oblige every and all requests which will further his goal of destroying the dollar and bring the dollar down to 1.0000 ER against its Zimbabwean brother from another mother.

It wouldn't be if the U.S. and other governments hadn't done ALL OF THE WRONG THINGS ...

Why are the D.C. lenders "overweight" Puerto Rico?

Paging, Teddy Roosevelt ...

The Mass legislator totally loses it after penning yet another angry letter (he is good at that; being unconflicted and actually passing sensible and Wall Street influence-free laws, not so much) in which he says that the $6 trillion extra toxic debt on the US Treasury's books from the GSEs (which the democrats refuse to recognize) is really the republicans' fault. The fact that Barney was instrumental to creating the parabolic phase of the housing bubble with his idiotic statements in 2005 that there is "no bubble", and that his commission currently refuses to deal with issues such as the GSEs and a repeat of the housing bubble is completely absent from his letter.

I think he did.

The Abacus deal stunk. But there were other deals that were even worse. This train wreck for investors could have been avoided. Instead, everyone just closed their eyes.

Interest rate derivatives certainly help many individual businesses control and hedge their costs.

But when a bunch of individuals all attempt to reduce their risks at the same time in the same way, it can increase the risk to the overall system.

Even as Bank of America is preparing to restart securitization and thus provide the single greatest gift to creditors the world over, as this is merely the first step in wiping out/transferring yet more trillions in private sector debt, it has done the public a bigger favor by compiling the following list of key terms for all those lost in the current labyrinth of definitions,acronyms and euphemisms. Since following the Goldman legal plight will require a facility with some heretofore quite complex constructs, the following catalog is a must read for all financial novices.

“These are very serious charges against a key supporter of President Obama’s bill to create a permanent Wall Street bailout fund. Despite President Obama’s rhetoric, his permanent bailout bill gives Goldman Sachs and other big Wall Street banks a permanent, taxpayer-funded safety net by designating them ‘too big to fail.’ Just whose side is President Obama on? - John Boehner

• China failed bond auction - Zero Hedge, Greek 3 Months at 21% - Zero Hedge, the entire US financial system is broke - Zero Hedge, yet we have this "Stocks Advance on Speculation of Greek Bailout; Yen Weakens" (Bloomberg)
• No seriously - you give a rat's ass about more news after the preceding?
• Fine
• China may post trade deficit, undermining yuan case (Bloomberg)
• As Greek bond rates soar, bankruptcy looms (NYT)
• The wax melts (Economist)
• Balkans scared of Greek default - Belgrade, yes Belgrade, is terrified of what Greek royal flush will mean (Die Presse)
• The risk premiums for Greek government bonds are higher than ever, ratings agencies are sounding the alarm, and the EU is worried. Only Greece itself is convinced: "We are not broke." (Focus)
• Spain combines Greece and Subprime 2.0 (Infokrieger)