My View on the Bailout de Jour
I appeared on Business News Network November 24, 2008 to talk about how the U.S. tax payer got shafted by the deal to save Citigroup. While there is no doubt that federal intervention was necessary,...
View ArticleUnemployment and Recessions
“The worst job numbers since 1945”, we heard from CNN this morning. Well, that is not true. Today is different from 1945 for two reasons. First, our population is much larger. Second, there was an...
View ArticleHere's an Idea: Let's Throw Some Good Money at Good
Once upon a time, there were three good banks: Bank of America, JP Morgan, and Citigroup. When the financial crisis started, these banks stepped up and seemingly did some favors for the government. JP...
View ArticleWhat Do We Do About Banks?
The government has dumped $45 billion of cash and back stopped over $100 billion in troubled assets for each of Citibank and Bank of America. Current market capitalization of Citi is about $17 billion...
View ArticleThe Essential Need for Transparency
We recently learned that the U.K. financial institution, RBS, lost $41 billion. We also learned that Citigroup lost $8 billion. How are we to interpret these numbers? Would you be surprised if it was...
View ArticleThis Winter of Our Hardship
The ‘Winter of Our Hardship’ are the words of President Obama in the inaugural address. He refers to the common dangers that we face in his somber message. The common danger is that this recession...
View ArticleFed Running Out of Bullets
“Fed To Hold Rates Near Zero” is the news headline today. It is not really news. What were they supposed to do? They can’t increase the rates. Zero is as low as you can go. There were about six notable...
View ArticleThe Long-Term Cost of the Credit Crisis
Many economists argue that recessions are a good thing. How is that possible? Well, recessions give companies the excuse to lay off unproductive workers – both blue and white collar and make other...
View ArticleHemorrhaging Jobs
The losses are staggering. If the pace of January and February continued through the year, we would lose 8.4 million jobs in 2009. That is unlikely, but it will be ugly. Consider the following facts....
View ArticleFour interviews
Obama scorecard President Obama means well and is doing a great job in many areas. However, I fear that we are perpetuating the same policies of the previous administration when it comes to the...
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