Reggie Middleton's BoomBustBlog.com offers a wealth of information about finance, especially housing market / mortgage market related finance, mortgage securitization, and their impact on the big banks. Reggie was interviewed on CNBC today, it's about 4 minutes and worth watching. Reggie has made some excellent calls. His blog posts are usually long and somewhat technical [...]
Props to Jesse's Cafe Americain for the link. This article outlines a judicial "Notice and Order" submitted by a retiring securities judge at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC): Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Administrative Law Judge George H. Painter made serious allegations regarding fellow CFTC judge Bruce Levine in announcing his retirement. In a notice [...]
My dear friends in the Liberty Community, For some months now I've been ranting here about the banks, their misdeeds, their ownership of CONgress, their ability to avoid coming under the rule of law. Many of you don't know about the burgeoning mortgage scandals. This is a fast-moving story that has resulted in the Attorneys [...]
Or are they bankrupting us? To me, those seem to be the only two choices. Here's why. And, by the way, if you're home's being foreclosed on, keep reading. This is not investment advice, and I am not a lawyer. A home mortgage is essentially a string of payments made over time. From an investor's [...]
Our coverage of the Iceland meltdown continues. As you'll recall, the three major banks in tiny Iceland (Glitnir, Kaupthing, Landsbanki) went on a borrowing and derivative-fueled lending spree. Icelandic banks opened bank branches in the EU and took deposits from mostly Britain and Netherlands. The deposits were used to fuel a real estate lending boom. [...]
From Huffpo: REYKJAVIK, Iceland — Iceland's former Prime Minister Geir Haarde has been referred to a special court in a move that could make him the first world leader to be charged in connection with the global financial crisis. After a heated debate Tuesday, lawmakers voted 33-30 to refer charges to the court against Haarde [...]
Or is it too late? One of the few pleasures of being an "outsider" financial pundit is watching your "mainstream" brethren (finally) abandon their orthodoxies. I have always believed, and have said to anyone who would listen, that the reason we are in this mess is because there is a critical mass of "economic thinkers" [...]
Bloomberg is reporting another high-level defection from the Obama Administration: Emanuel Likely to Leave Before November for Chicago Mayor Race Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Rahm Emanuel, President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, is likely to leave the White House before the November congressional elections to run for mayor of Chicago, people familiar with the matter [...]
From WaPo Some of the nation's largest mortgage companies used a single document processor who said he signed off on foreclosures without having read the paperwork - an admission that may open the door for homeowners across the country to challenge foreclosure proceedings. As head of Ally's foreclosure document processing team, 41-year-old Jeffrey Stephan was [...]
...remaining original member of the crack White House Economics Team. Bloomberg is reporting that Larry Summers is expected to quit his post as director of the president's National Economics Council after the November elections. Other members who've abandoned ship include Peter Orzag, who paddled away after announcing his resignation in June, and Christina Romer, who [...]
Bloomberg: Munger Says ‘Thank God’ Bailouts Came Before Handouts (Update1) I, for one, genuinely appreciate Mr. Billionare Munger speaking truthfully. "Charles Munger, the billionaire vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., defended the U.S. financial-company rescues of 2008 and told students that people in economic distress should “suck it in and cope.” “You should thank God” [...]
...will you trust the word of the U.S. Joint Forces Command? File available for download from this site. Changing conditions in the global economy could likewise have important implications for global security also, including a decreased ability of the United States to allocate resources for defense purposes, less purchasing power for available dollars, and shifting [...]
