SeekingAlpha.com (Free subscription) | 11/27/2009
John Lounsbury submits: Steve Hanke at The Cato Institute has constructed the following picture of worldwide leverage ( here ), based on dollar denominated activities. Complete Story »
SeekingAlpha.com (Free subscription) | 11/13/2009
John Lounsbury submits: The FHA insures approximately $680 billion of single family home mortgages. An audit, conducted by Integrated Financial Engineering of Rockville, MD, found that FHA reserves against losses had dropped to $3.6 billion (0.53%) as of September 30. This was due to losses because of defaulting mortgages. According to law, the minimum required reserves are 2%, or $13.6...
SeekingAlpha.com (Free subscription) | 11/19/2009
John Lounsbury submits: A yet-to-be identified Canadian family-owned real estate organization (from Toronto) has bought the Pontiac Silverdome $583,000. It will reportedly be used as an indoor soccer facility. The cost to build the 80,000 seat arena in 1975 was $55.7 million. That would be $227 million in 2009 dollars. Complete Story »
Credit Writedowns (Free subscription) | 11/21/2009
... (Aren’t we awash in productive capacity') The Twenty Year Stock Bubble Is Still Inflated — John Lounsbury Distraction of the Day: Look what U.S. Customs found. (video embedded below) Share and Enjoy: Related posts: Links: 2009-01-17 News round-up: 29 Aug 2008 – company reports News from around the web: 2009-11-20 News from around the web: 2009-08-06 Links: 2009-02-19 Permalinks: RSS...
SeekingAlpha.com (Free subscription) | 11/18/2009
John Lounsbury submits: Goldman Sachs ( GS ) has apparently decided that it has a public relations disaster on its hands and is starting a campaign to turn that around. The firm has pledged $100 million a year for programs to help small businesses. The pledge will be fulfilled annually for five years for a total commitment of $500 million, and will be overseen by a panel headed by Warren...
SeekingAlpha.com (Free subscription) | 11/18/2009
John Lounsbury submits: Two days ago it was solar power panels . On Wednesday, A-Power Energy Generation Systems ( APWR ), a Chinese wind turbine maker, announced (see New York Times article by Kate Galbraith here ) plans to start construction of a wind turbine production plant somewhere in the U.S. next year. A-Power has signed an agreement with private equity firm US-REG (U.S. Renewable...
Credit Writedowns (Free subscription) | 11/16/2009
... and new employees must be hired. This is a stop-gap) PBGC Is Not Only Underwater, It’s Drowning — John Lounsbury Diane Chu: China – The Sleeping Lion Awakened Interfluidity :: Discretion and financial regulation How the tax code encourages debt : James Surowiecki – The New Yorker FT Alphaville – The not-so-small small bank CRE problem Distraction of the Day: Would you buy a battery-pack...
Credit Writedowns (Free subscription) | 11/14/2009
... He Should Start With Military The Europeanization Of America – Bruce Bartlett The FHA Is Broke — John Lounsbury Surprise (Not): Madoff’s Results Were Generated Via a Randomizer House price drop indicates ‘double-dip’ for property market | Money | guardian.co.uk 2012 movie is truly disastrous – New Scientist The Associated Press: Obama eyes domestic spending freeze Dell Jumps on Android...
SeekingAlpha.com (Free subscription) | 11/02/2009
John Lounsbury submits: There are three articles at ft.com this morning warning about financial system troubles that remain unresolved. They are discussing distinctly different aspects of difficulties that could derail recovery. They are different, but for me they rhyme. Loose Ends or Fundamental Change Complete Story »
SeekingAlpha Energy Stocks (Free subscription) | 11/02/2009
John Lounsbury submits: Chris Morrison at bnet.com says that clean coal technology is in real trouble . The bottom line is cost; an estimate (from a report released Thursday by the pro-CCS Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute ) is is that costs will increase 78%, on average, for electricity from burning coal. Chris also says: Nevertheless, everything could work out perfectly and...
SeekingAlpha.com (Free subscription) | 11/02/2009
John Lounsbury submits: Bob Willis, writing at Bloomberg.com , reports that Prof. Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate and Columbia University economics professor, is skeptical that the recession has ended. He cites the need for a GDP growth rate to be sustained in the range of 3.0% to 3.5% just to provide jobs for new workers entering the workplace. Growth has to be higher than that to bring...
SeekingAlpha.com (Free subscription) | 10/31/2009
John Lounsbury submits: There has been a lot of outrage about the the AIG bailout, but one particular aspect has been somewhat below the radar. Enter Matt Taibbi. Matt's latest expose at True/Slant ( here ) discusses the case of Stephen Friedman. The former chairman of the board of directors of the New York Fed bought more than 50,000 shares of Goldman Sachs ( GS ) stock following the...
SeekingAlpha.com (Free subscription) | 10/26/2009
John Lounsbury submits: David Viniar is CFO of Goldman Sachs ( GS ). On September 16, 2008, the day after the Lehman collapse, Goldman conducted a conference call. At that time, Viniar said, "I would tell you is, given the outcome at Lehman and whatever the outcome at AIG, I would expect the direct impact of our credit exposure to both of them to be immaterial to our results."...
SeekingAlpha.com (Free subscription) | 10/26/2009
John Lounsbury submits: Alan Binder once proposed: "Economists have the least influence on policy where they know the most and are most agreed." This is part of what he called Murphy's Law of Economics. An editorial in The Washington Post ( here) discusses why this sacred cow of inefficiency and waste seems to be off-limits in the current health care debate. The fact that most...
