The Wall Street Journal’s Stu Woo reports on how Amazon ramps up for the Christmas selling season in a much-read write-up for the paper with a focus on the thoughts of holiday season workers like 75-year old Ray Williams and his wife Sarann. Is this what retirement will look like in the US going forward?
Below is the associated video.
Source: Welcome to Amazon Town – WSJ
Read more »As issuance of CMBS ramps up again, so do concerns about the deterioration in the quality of loans used as collateral.
Read more »It is a ploy that would no doubt bring a smile to the faces of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli. First, China is giving up something that it is not really using. Specifically, the current band itself has rarely, if ever been utilized, which is why some observers have scoffed at the suggestion that the band would be widened. If the Chinese officials have shied away from using the fully range that the 0.5% band offers, there is no guarantee the wider band will be explored
Read more »The first few links are on the housing bust in China. While things have gone pear-shaped there (and in India), it is not yet clear this means a hard landing (5% GDP growth or less, down from over 10%). The ability of the Chinese to socialise losses is significantly greater than it is in the West. However, this bust is and was predictable.
The only question is what China can do to stop it from creating a downward spiral. As the second post is titled it’s a question of credit writedowns first, but in this synchronised global growth slow down, then what?
Read more »The end of year is usually a good time for markets. There was a lot of angst about the European situation a few weeks ago, but there is less of that now because we’re hitting year-end (tape painting). Does that mean the credit crisis situation is stable? No, but it has stabilised somewhat. 2012 will be a different story though. I talked about the European sovereign debt crisis and my themes for 2012 with Howard Green of BNN and Ryan Avent of the Economist yesterday. The link to the video is below but let me say a bit more, particularly about today’s LTRO by the ECB.
Read more »It may be too early to declare who the winner is, but BofA's willingness to settle the $8.5 billion Countrywide suit hints at how big the litigation problem might be for mortgage originators.
Read more »In 2006 I started making a number of predictions based on what I thought was the necessary and logical development of China’s growth model. Some of these predictions seemed fairly outlandish, especially to China analysts – Chinese and foreign – who had very little knowledge of economic history or other developing countries, but many of them so far have turned out quite well.
As more and more analysts are beginning to understand the constraints of the Chinese growth model I think it might be useful to list some of these predictions to get a sense of what might be still to come.
Read more »My friend Steve Keen recently presented a “primer” on Hyman Minsky. In his piece, Steve criticized the methodology used by Paul Krugman and argued that Krugman could learn a lot from Minsky. In particular Krugman’s equilibrium approach and primitive dynamics was contrasted to Minsky’s rich analysis. Finally, Krugman’s model of debt deflation dynamics left out banks–while banks always played an important role in Minsky’s approach. This post is to help explain why Hyman Minsky matters by quickly summarizing Minsky’s main areas of research.
Read more »Germany and Papademos have ended Greece’s political sovereignty, but Greece gave up its economic sovereignty long ago when it adopted the euro. Two aspects of national economic sovereignty were inherently lost with nations that gave up their own currency and adopted the euro. A member nation could no longer have a monetary policy and it could no longer revalue its currency. The designers of the euro required a measure sharply curtailing the member nations’ remaining economic sovereignty.
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View the Scorecard deals featured in ASR's Scorecard database that priced in the last two weeks.
Read more »Given market positioning and the anticipated long-term repo operation at the end of the month, it is tempting to see this move above $1.3250 as a breakout. Is it a breakout
Read more »Here is a video of my latest appearance on Capital Account with Lauren Lyster. We spoke specifically about the situation in Europe; and that means Greece in the first instance. We also talked a lot about the ECB's LTRO program which I see as a back door sovereign monetisation scheme as much as a bank liquidity program
Read more »The agenda in the euro zone is changing. The likely outcome of the weekend elections in Greece and France are just as much an effect as a cause of the shift in the agenda. For the first time since the crisis began, the German insistence on austerity is being complimented by the push for a growth pact
Read more »News Desk: What’s Going On With Michael Grimm? : The New Yorker In 2010, Michael Grimm, a Republican from Staten Island and former U.S. Marine and F.B.I. agent, was elected to Congress. Grimm ran largely on the strength of his history in law enforcement—he had served undercover in a large bust on Wall Street—and his
Read more »Gingrich Ties to Fannie, Freddie Said to Extend to Speaker Days – Bloomberg Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich had ties to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae during his time as speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999, adding to questions about the nature of his relationship with the home mortgage companies. tags: fannie freddie-mac
Read more »Below is the video clip from 60 Minuted giving the average viewer a better sense of what is going on in Europe right now. The video is timely given the problems Spain and Italy are having with their government debt levels rising. Spain is the country to watch, though
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