Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit is blaming his company’s considerable troubles on moves by previous management to dive into real estate. In a particularly generous gesture, he also told PBS’ Charlie Rose that he understands how people might be upset by the company’s massive government rescue, Reuters reports.
From Reuters:
Bailout Nation turns to consumers today, as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson prepares to announce a new program to encourage lending for auto loans, student loans and credit cards, the Wall Street Journal says.
The government basically is creating a lending facility, run by the Federal Reserve, to provide loans More…
Confused about the financial crisis? The rise of mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps? So, it appears, were the credit ratings agencies — the companies that rated these financial instruments.
Since the federal government didn’t have authority to regulate the secondary mortgage market, it was up to the big CRA’s, More…
With all the news about partially nationalizing banks, and with the candidates rolling out new economic proposals and facing off in a debate tonight over their prescriptions for the credit crunch, it’s easy to forget that the whole mess still comes down to simple things: A homeowner, and More…
The Federal Reserve is considering some aggressive steps to unlock lending, including buying large amounts of unsecured short-term debt, The New York Times says today. That’s the money that companies regularly use to run their everyday operations.
When it seizes up, so does the rest of the economy. And More…
One small detail that might have been overlooked as lawmakers failed to pass that $700-billion bailout bill: Today is Sept. 30.
That means it’s the end of the third quarter. And that means – if you want to know what a credit crunch might look like, today could be the More…
I’m guessing Brad DeLong isn’t too happy about today’s failure of the bailout bill. He’s got a suggestion on what to do next: Bring Congress back into session after the election and adopt a nationalized plan.
From DeLong:
Normally when I see the Wall Street Journal flash breaking news like, “the Dow industrials fall more than 600 on fears bailout package vote will fail,” I’d shoot our economics reporter Mary Kane an email to ask her what to make of this. Unfortunately, Mary is out today, so More…
Part 1: U.S. Failing to Defend Dollar
The U.S. national debt is rapidly rising. If Congress signs off on the Bush administration’s $700-billion rescue plan for Wall Street’s troubled financial markets, the debt ceiling will have to be raised to $11.3 trillion. The debt was $9.4 trillion in March. More…
As Charles Morris pointed out on our site Thursday, the markets are giddy over a possible Resolution Trust Corp.-like solution to this week’s big meltdown on Wall Street. The only problem, Morris explained, is that the RTC wasn’t actually a bailout and didn’t buy up bad mortgages from ailing More…
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