February 11, 2009
Rep. Nydia Velazquez: Are you implying that Citigroup lost its mind? Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs): If they did it's not because of this [mortgage] issue. [Laughter from everyone but Citi's Vikram Pandit] -- via Dealbreaker...
The FBI has decided this financial crisis is not just a passing fad. Too bad that its newfound ardor comes well after most mortgage and housing frauds were likely perpetrated. Nevertheless, the numbers from Judiciary Committee testimony today are worth...
Over and over again, Congress manages to do the impossible. This time around it has somehow made Wall Street CEOs … sympathetic. Evan Newmark explains why: [Maxine] Waters (D.-CA) addressed the eight CEOs as “Captains of the Universe.” Captain Kirk?...
The following is a graph of the number of currencies per country worldwide over the last 60 years. While the number of planetary currencies grew in impressive fashion over the period, the bull market in new currencies now seems to...
Reuters has begun tracking economic-related protests and riots worldwide. Here are just some of the recent examples: BRITAIN: -- Hundreds of workers protested outside British power stations on Wednesday over the use of foreign contractors in recession-hit Britain, where almost...
Fascinating graph from Science of Sport showing how marathon performance trends with age: ...
Something of a diversion, but the results in this comparison of global religiosity surprised me. Are Canada and the U.S. about the same? The former never felt that way to me. Further, the equatorial skew of religiosity is also interesting,...
Merging two zombie banks is like have two drunks trying to help each other to stand up. -- Nouriel Roubini (RGE Monitor -- 02/10/09) The entire Roubini piece on bank nationalization -- or Plan "N" as he calls...
Good comments from fellow San Diegan Jim Hamilton on the dangers of the continuing confluence of Treasury and the Federal Reserve in the TARP II plans: There's a very real danger in going as far down the road of Fed-Treasury...
There should be lots of grandstanding, fireworks and acrimony Wednesday at the House Financial Services Committee hearing on TARP Accountability -- and that's just among the politicians. Wait until they get their hooks into the assembled bank CEOS. Anyway, you'll...
