Last week, I offered to wager a friend that, “In the next three years, Fannie Mae will be engaged in a variety of business activities which are market sensitive. …” Old Doom friend Bill Maloni often has unique insight, but this time he’s brought us something special. He’...

… We all had positions, we each had a role We’d over-rehearsed it; we had full control They can’t teach you acting it’s there in your soul It’s the same with a bank job and each thing we stole …. It somehow seems appropriate it’s a low-quality bootleg record...

Arguably, this process involves sales price fraud, a seller concession (in contrast to the claimed "charitable gift"), unlicensed lending, money laundering, and defrauding the Federal government (the FHA has no way of knowing which loans have "real" downpayments and which are bei...

… there is still sturdy demand for Treasuries from abroad; foreigners refused to dump them even when they lost confidence in mortgage-backed debt last year . But America cannot take things for granted. [1] The full Economist article has a lot more nuance, but the underlying message is clear. S...

Still, while such a transformation is, to put it mildly, undesirable, the policies are necessary. As outlined in these pages, the U.S. and many of its G-7 counterparts over the past 25 years have become more and more dependent on asset appreciation. Under the policy-endorsed cover of technology and ...

U.S. Treasury debt prices eased on Wednesday as spotty auction results confirmed fears about the market’s ability to absorb a growing need for new issuance , offsetting any safety bid from careening stocks. [1] The last few weeks of the Bush lame-duck term is obviously cloaked in a financial f...

"We believe that in 2009 we will need to see Canadian banks stem loan and asset growth , to control their balance sheets better." [1] If I recall correctly, a Fleet Street publisher was once asked to describe the most boring imaginable newspaper story. He replied it would be coverage of Th...

The deal will be welcomed in global markets because it will prevent a fire sale of derivatives originally valued at more than $200-billion that would have threatened to further destabilize the financial system. [1] Tonight visions of sugar-plums (and unfrozen RIFs — that’s Canadian for 4...

Before all hell broke loose, Bernie says, he didn’t secure extra financing , saying to himself: "I have Madoff - what do I need with a line of credit?" Now the layoff of employees who have worked for Norman S. Bernie Co. for 30 or more years has begun. [1] The real danger of the Mado...

Yet surely I’m not the only person to ask the obvious question: How different, really, is Mr. Madoff’s tale from the story of the investment industry as a whole? [4] [NOTE: this post originally didn't have a letters-of-fire quote, and then that one dropped in our laps.  Thanks Paul ...