Michael Gracie 

Nouriel Roubini pulls no punches: Americans lived in a “Made-off” and Ponzi bubble economy for a decade or even longer. Madoff is the mirror of the American economy and of its over-leveraged agents: a house of cards of leverage over leverage by households, financial firms and corporations that has now collapsed in a heap. When [...]

And then grab a stage break Nobody can be right all the time, but Dr. Nouriel Roubini has come pretty darn close so far. That does not, however, preclude being correct into perpetuity. Dr. Roubini has now grasped near constant media attention, and I believe the media’s insatiable desire for content to force down the [...]

“We’re” is an understatement, and hundreds of billions might be too… “We’re talking hundreds of billions,” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in a press conference. “This needs to be big enough to make a real difference and get to the heart of the problem.” Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s plans, which include the [...]

Daniel Mudd wanted the loans to “optimize the business“… Internal documents show that even late in the housing bubble, Fannie Mae was drawn to risky loans by a variety of temptations, including the desire to increase its market share and fulfill government quotas for the support of low-income borrowers. Hmm. Just a few weeks back, [...]

I’ve seen this question pop up a number of times, and in each case different numbers are floated as the answer. So why not throw out another? According to the Federal Reserve the aggregate market value of all the residential real estate in the US, as of Q1 – 2008, was (a) $19.718 trillion. In [...]

Via WSJ: Do all Washington politicians get their loans directly from CEOs in the mortgage industry? Readers might be wondering after learning about Countrywide Financial and its VIP treatment for Senators Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) and Kent Conrad (D., N.D.)… Mr. Conrad then recounted how he came to receive preferential treatment from the country’s largest [...]

Via Bloomberg: Rising consumer prices will leave more U.S. consumers unable to pay their debts and may lead to a “financial tsunami,” according to Bennet Sedacca, president of money manager Atlantic Advisors LLC in Winter Park, Florida… Sedacca wrote that current financial-market conditions remind him of “someone standing on a lonely beach, armed with only [...]

Peter Bernstein pits Mellon against Keynes (and Greenspan and Bernanke against the tide). The tome is shutting off the open bar to prevent the hangover. (h/t to The Big Picture) Editor’s Note: Bernstein is author of two books I’ve read, The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession and Against the Gods: The Remarkable [...]

Is Fannie Mae building a new ATM? Incentive for default…crumbling balance sheet…taxpayer bailout? Haven’t heard that before.

In theory, what if… You let those who are about to be foreclosed on be foreclosed on. Bank inventories would rise, and house prices would fall. This is called correction, and in many circles it is considered healthy. Rather than pour capital into the inevitably failing cause of bailouts, relax restrictions on the purchase of [...]