Financial News

[mr_genius]

http://www.markfiore.com/political-cartoon...tion-mark-fiore

[Balta1701]

I'd like to thank the Senate GOP for writing us some darn fine campaign ads tonight.

[Balta1701]

NSFW language. But this is fun.

[southsider2k5]

NSFW language. But this is fun.

 

Yet Carl Levin voted for healthcare knowing full well that the vast majority of American's were going to lose money on it.

[Balta1701]

Yet Carl Levin voted for healthcare knowing full well that the vast majority of American's were going to lose money on it.

 

I guess when you weight the population by the amount of money they have, that's true.

[Balta1701]

Harry Reid can now leave congress saying he's actually broken 1 filibuster on bringing a bill to the floor

[Balta1701]

As top Federal Reserve officials debated whether there was a housing bubble and what to do about it, then-Chairman Alan Greenspan argued that the dissent should be kept secret so that the Fed wouldn't lose control of the debate to people less well-informed than themselves.

 

"We run the risk, by laying out the pros and cons of a particular argument, of inducing people to join in on the debate, and in this regard it is possible to lose control of a process that only we fully understand," Greenspan said, according to the transcripts of a March 2004 meeting.

Well, thank goodness they fully understood the housing market and didn't let things get out of control.

[HuskyCaucasian]

Interesting Idea:

Audit the Fed

Possibly today, but if not today then soon, the Senate will decide whether or not to follow the House's lead and adopt a provision requiring government auditors to open up the books at the Federal Reserve. The measure enjoys a great deal of popularity on both the left and the right, but is so fiercely opposed by powerful interests that it could nonetheless become a stumbling block in the way of financial regulatory legislation.

 

Right now Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is trying to round up 60 or more votes to overcome a likely filibuster and include an "audit the Fed" provision in the Senate's bill. There are just a few small obstacles: the White House, major financial institutions, and the Fed itself. Their resistance is fierce--but the measure is so popular that killing it will be difficult for them and that, in their eyes, threatens to put a grenade at the center of efforts to to tighten the rules on Wall Street.

 

The pushback is reminiscent, in a way, of the executive branch's institutional opposition to oversight of the nation's intelligence agencies and operations. The Fed has always been shrouded in secrecy, and its leaders (in both the private and public sector) continue to insist on keeping their activities opaque, in order, they say, to protect complicated monetary policy from the political process.

 

It is believed that the Fed loaned major financial institutions upwards of $2 trillion during the financial crisis. Sanders' legislation would require the Government Accountability Office to conduct a comprehensive audit of the central bank, and force it to make public which companies received that money, and under what terms. Chairman Ben Bernanke opposes the latter on the grounds that exposing the institutions that required dramatic assistance would be counterproductive to the goal of restabilizing the financial system.

 

It's likely, in fact, that the Obama administration will be under intense pressure to veto the entire financial reform bill if "audit the fed" survives.

 

That's why, according to the Wall Street Journal they'll "fight to stop it at all costs." The White House is hoping to cut off "audit the Fed" in the Senate, so that they'll have a stronger hand when House and Senate negotiators meet to iron out the differences between their regulatory reform bills. If the Senate bill does not include Sanders' amendment, then the House will be in a weak position vis-a-vis the Senate and White House and the provision could be easily stripped.

 

If Sanders prevails, then the White House will be all but out of options and President Obama will likely be left with the choice of vetoing the legislation, or signing it and raising the ire of very powerful people. Stay tuned.

 

Open the books.

[southsider2k5]

Interesting Idea:

Audit the Fed

 

 

Open the books.

 

And there goes the "independence" of the FED...

[Balta1701]

And there goes the "independence" of the FED...

Yeah, that'd be a shame. It did such a damn fine job the last decade. Thank God they understood the situation in the housing market so well.

[Cknolls]

Yeah, that'd be a shame. It did such a damn fine job the last decade. Thank God they understood the situation in the housing market so well.

 

 

No worries. It is all "contained"

[Balta1701]

Link

[Balta1701]

Some GSE commentary :

One of the right's talking points on financial reform is that it needs to include major reforms of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That seemed fair enough to me, at least until I started working on a Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac explainer and realized it belies the reality of the issue. And Republicans, I think, know that.

 

If you read the Republican FinReg proposal, it does three things on Fannie and Freddie: It appoints a new special inspector general inside the mortgage giants to make regular reports to Congress. It undoes the emergency measures put into place during the financial crisis. And it directs the president "to submit a plan to reform [Fannie and Freddie] to Congress no later than six months after the enactment of the Act."

 

In other words: Ready, set, PUNT!

 

What we do with Fannie and Freddie has more to do with our priorities for the housing market than our priorities for the financial system. The entities exist to make mortgages cheaper (I'll get into the how of that tomorrow). Eliminate them, or substantially change them, and mortgages will get more expensive. You're talking about taking a massive -- albeit somewhat opaque -- subsidy to the middle class and eliminating it. That is to say, the politics of reforming Fannie and Freddie are more like the politics of reforming the mortgage interest deduction than reforming financial regulation.

 

That's why the administration prefers to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the context of a housing bill: The immediate effect of reform will be felt in the housing market rather than the financial sector, and you'll likely need a basket of different housing reforms to ensure some semblance of a smooth transaction. Wrapping a housing overhaul in financial-regulation reform is like trying to run an ultra-marathon while climbing a mountain.

 

As it is, I'm a steadfast opponent of the government's endless interventions into the housing sector, and I'd like to see some fairly radical reforms here. But I'd advise people against listening to anyone who's calling for those reforms rather than specifying what they should be. It borders on the absurd that the Republican proposal for Fannie and Freddie is for Obama to submit a proposal for Fannie and Freddie at some point in the future, but it's just one more absurdity generated by the sanctity of our program of housing subsidies. Until we're ready to talk seriously about them, we're not ready to talk seriously about Fannie and Freddie.

[Balta1701]

"Republicans are having difficulty determining how they can continue making love to Wall Street,"

-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

[HuskyCaucasian]

-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

oh like any adulterous relationship, they'll find an excuse.

[Y2HH]

Because only republicans make money on wall street.

[Chisoxfn]

Robert Shiller (yes, that one) on the Housing market.

The government supports for the housing market pretty much all end over the next month or two. After that, you've got a couple of months while things that close are absorbed into the data, and by the middle of the summer, we may start getting a sign about whether or not I'm right and the housing market still has a decent ways to fall.

I think there is a shot that in certain markets which still are at risk for additional foreclosure exposure that we will see prices drop again by a decent chunk. Nothing like earlier, but I think there is the potential for another decline in the market. And to be honest, at least in the area I live in, that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing because affordability indexes are still quite off the charts.

[BigSqwert]

What the heck just happened to the DJIA?

[Balta1701]

What the heck just happened to the DJIA?

Greece.

[Heads22]

What the heck just happened to the DJIA?

 

Proctor and Gamble, apparently.

[Cknolls]

What the heck just happened to the DJIA?

 

 

FEAR! It is not over.

[Balta1701]

Faulty Procter & Gamble stock quotes were major factor in markets' huge afternoon drop, Nasdaq says.

[Cknolls]

That was a crash supported by the gov't. Anything else is spin, IMO.

[NorthSideSox72]

That was a crash supported by the gov't. Anything else is spin, IMO.

LOL

 

Yeah no. Wish I could say more, can't.

 

[Balta1701]

 

This is entertaining.