Category: Policy

Banks, paying your rescuer: Part 2, the fine print

21 October, 2008 (11:58) | GSEs, Policy, Subprime, TARP, US News | No comments

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.]
 
Yesterday we recorded the Godfather-like meeting, described in the New York Times, held last week in Treasury’s offices, in which the financial rescue’s architects, headed by Secretary Paulson, made the big banks an offer they couldn’t refuse.
 

“Someday, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service […]

Banks, paying your rescuer: Part 1, you *will* do it

20 October, 2008 (08:24) | GSEs, Policy, Subprime, TARP, US News | No comments

It used to be that if you made a fool of yourself in the wilderness, you got rescued for free.  Now, with extreme skiing, orienteering, and other Darwin-Award candidate adventures, if they airlift your frozen self off the peak, once you’re thawed out and after the flashbulbs have popped, you are presented with a bill […]

The troll under Massachusetts’ bridge

17 October, 2008 (08:13) | Massachusetts, Policy, Regulation | No comments

“None shall pass …”
 
In Scandinavian literature, trolls live under bridges, preying upon those who have to pass.  For this story, bridges make a good metaphor – everyone has to use the bridge to cross the river, and everyone is happier to be on the other side; meanwhile, the troll lurks below, having done nothing to […]

What the financial crisis isn’t: Part 3, the way forward

16 October, 2008 (08:33) | Capital markets, GSEs, Housing, Policy, Subprime, US News | No comments

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 2 and the previous Part 1.]
 
So far we’ve seen that almost everybody is wrong about what the financial crisis is …
 
1. Not an asset bubble … a systematic under-pricing of risk.
2. Not caused by subprime lending … although that was the miner’s canary.
3. Not principally about the GSEs … because other financial institutions […]

What the financial crisis isn’t: Part 2, the blame game

15 October, 2008 (08:20) | Capital markets, GSEs, Housing, Policy, Subprime, US News | No comments

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.]

Yesterday we knocked off a handful of things the credit crisis wasn’t:
 

 
1. Not an asset bubble … a systematic under-pricing of risk.
2. Not caused by subprime lending … although that was the miner’s canary.
3. Not principally about the GSEs … because other financial institutions are in much worse shape
4. Not just […]