financial crisis

Has the finance industry trainjacked America?

By all accounts the Acela has been a success. Thought it is far from perfect and constitutes moderate speed rail for the most part, it seems to have attracted strong ridership. A midday train was totally packed on both the BOS-NYC leg and NYC-DC leg the last time I rode it. I didn’t see an empty seat anywhere. Which is pretty amazing given how much more expensive it is than the regional, and frankly not that much faster. It does seem to have accomplished its mission of more closely linking Boston, New York, and Washington.  read more »

It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly two years since we first wrote about the game of “hide the ball” that Junkmeister Ben Bernanke is playing. Finally, Congress is getting some admissions out of the Federal Reserve about the gusher of cash that was opened up when the insides fell out of Wall Street’s Ponzi scheme. Remember, you read it here first!  read more »

A recent editorial in The New York Times lamented the latest housing market woes, this time resulting from various banks’ disregard for, or inattentiveness to, a legal foreclosure process. As the article correctly states, “It is hard to be shocked.”  read more »

It is extremely difficult to find reliable reporting on the intensity of the housing bubbles across China, but this article from the China Post of June 1, 2010 "Economist sees housing market bubble", appears to be realistic.  read more »

If someone is just finding out last week that Wall Street is profiting from the crisis it created, then I have only one question for them – "what rock have you been living under for the last two years?"  read more »

The big news in finance this week is that Goldman Sachs got busted – finally – for fraud related to those mortgage-backed bonds. At the heart of the Securities and Exchange Commission charges is the accusation that Goldman Sachs failed to disclose conflicts of interest it had on some mortgage investments.  read more »

The day before leaving town to vacation in an opulent $9 million, 5-bedroom home in Hawaii, the Obama administration pledged unlimited financial support for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The mortgage giants are already beneficiaries of $200 billion in taxpayer aid.  read more »

In the new Wall Street math of the post-9/08 world, it seems that some people turn to humor and others to rage. First they burned down our 401k plans: some people found this funny and made jokes about their “201k” plans.  read more »

When a bunch of American bankers woke up last Thursday, I hope they found more to be thankful for than just a traditional turkey dinner. It’s thought that the American banks will have less exposure to Dubai World than most European or Asian banks – although the American banking industry is known to hide a thing or two up their sleeves.  read more »

Coming soon to a market near you: a bust in commercial real estate that will make the subprime mortgage crisis look like a picnic. The other shoe drops in 2010.  read more »