The Congressional Oversight Panel, which has been reviewing government efforts to rescue banks, released a report today, warning that bad loans and related securities remain a potential risk to the economy and small banks. Here are the key paragraphs (bold … Read More

It is now rather common to argue that those economists who anticipated the crisis anticipated the wrong crisis – a dollar crisis, not a banking crisis. Robin Harding of the FT writes : “If economists try to predict crises they … Read More

One thing that has puzzled me is that some of the countries that have — implicitly at least — been most critical of the expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet during the crisis long have had much larger balance sheets … Read More

From The New York Times : LAST week Ben Bernanke appeared before Congress, setting off a discussion over whether the president should reappoint him as chairman of the Federal Reserve when his term ends next January. Mr. Bernanke deserves to … Read More

Is now rather obvious. The dollar goes down as well as up. Last fall, demand for dollars rose — in part because Americans pulled funds out of the rest of the world faster than foreigners pulled funds out of the … Read More

6/26/09 - CNN - Fareed Zakaria’s GPS Program on CNN: Recession’s End Near? ( Click here for Video ) CNN - Are we done with the recession?  An Economist, a historian, and a billionaire argue what is to come.

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One common argument — at least prior to the crisis — was that sovereign investors, because of their long-term focus, were generally a stabilizing presence in the market. Sovereign wealth funds in particular. And presumably central bank reserve managers as … Read More

One of the questions raised by the expansion of sovereign wealth funds – back when sovereign funds were growing rapidly on the back of high oil prices and Asian countries’ increased willingness to take risks with the reserves – was … Read More

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) will release their annual report tomorrow. The Guardian has a preview: Recovery threatened by toxic assets still hidden in key banks … Despite months of co-ordinated action around the globe to stabilise the banking … Read More

I highly recommend Anton Brender and Florence Pisani’s recent monograph, “ Globalized finance and its collapse .” In a lot of ways, it is something that I wish I could have written. I don’t agree with every detail, but in … Read More