Archive for October, 2008

US Banking System Rescue

Monday, October 13th, 2008

The Treasury will make a statement tomorrow morning at 830AM EDT on its market stability initiative. Here is a link to the press release. Update: Here is link to the Bloomberg story on the Treasury plan to recapitalize the battered, bruised and beaten banking sector. Treasury will spend a cool crisp ...

Politics,Regulation,and Bonuses

Monday, October 13th, 2008

The intervention by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve at the time of the collapse of Bear Stearns shall henceforth be celebrated by economic historians as a punctuation point in American financial history. I believe that historians will mark it as a watershed event which began the dismantling of the ...

Algebra

Monday, October 13th, 2008

In the previous posting I noted that the German government rescue plan which includes guarantees and capital injections totalled 470 billion euros. I hope that someone can point out a flaw in my logic but that would equate to about $2.7 trillion if one compares the relative GDP size of the ...

Monday Morning Potpourri

Monday, October 13th, 2008

Libor set this morning ( three month) at 4.75 percent. On Friday it had set at 4.82 percent. Central banks in another coordinated effort have agreed to provide unlimited amounts of dollars (against the appropriate collateral) to the markets. This is via the Swiss National Bank, the Bank of England and ...

Sunday Evening Links

Sunday, October 12th, 2008

This story from Bloomberg chronicles the deteriorating fiscal situation of the US and suggests that the fiscal 2009 deficit might be an amazing $2 trillion. That would put the deficit at about 12 percent of GDP. With the price of Morgan Stanley stock well below levels which prevailed when it inked ...

Federal Reserve Balance Sheet

Saturday, October 11th, 2008

The Federal Reserve's balance sheet has undergone an explosive transformation as the central bank enngages in desperate methods to keep the system afloat. I just came across this recent posting by Professor James Hamilton at Econbrowser in which he provides illuminating insight into the recent machinations which the Federal Reserve has ...

Changing Horses Midstream

Saturday, October 11th, 2008

The Times (New York)  reports that the Administration is revamping its resuce plans on the fly and now favors direct injections of capital into the banking system.

G7 Action Statement

Friday, October 10th, 2008

This is the statement issued by the G7 following conclusion of their gathering.  And the Paulson statement

Some Closing Comments October 10 2008

Friday, October 10th, 2008

Prices of Treasury coupon securities are closing lower today at the end of one of the most tumultuous weeks in financial markets history. The yield on the benchmark 2 year note has climbed 5 basis points to 1.59 percent. The yield on the 5 year note has jumped 7 basis ...

Administrative Note

Friday, October 10th, 2008

The Treasury bond market is closed Monday for the Columbus Day holiday. Following a longstanding practice the Treasury market will close at 200PM today.