Archive for the ‘Creative Accounting’ Category
Friday, August 8th, 2008
We need to take an honest look at our financial system and a more pragmatic assessment of the possibility of putting it “back on its feet.” It is clear that the time when that was possible is gone. Our latest attempt was last week’s “Housing and Economic Recovery Act.” This ...
Posted in Creative Accounting, Bank Management, Polticial Decisions Affecting Banking | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
A reader asked me the other day when Freddie and Fanny were created. I knew the answer was that rarest of events, something that happened before my time. God created the earthquake, so I thought it might have been on the third day of all time or something. So I ...
Posted in Creative Accounting, The Banking Crisis, Federal Housing Agencies | No Comments »
Saturday, July 12th, 2008
I’ve been waiting for thirty years. That’s when I first heard Milton Friedman predict that the real United States Deficit problem was not the one we all talk about. It is the one that will hit the fan when the Treasury assumes the Obligations of Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae, ...
Posted in Rating Agencies, Creative Accounting, When Regulation Goes Wrong | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
In the June 24th WSJ (“Maybe It’s Time to Put the Banks and the Investment Banks Back Together.”) Dennis Berman forecasts the demise of investment banks. I could not disagree more with his thesis, that transaction-based institutions have become obsolete, since their ratios of risk to anticipated return have ...
Posted in Creative Accounting, Bank Management, When Regulation Goes Wrong | No Comments »