stock market

With disgraced Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff safely behind bars to serve his 150- year prison sentence, the business of figuring out how he pulled off one of the greatest financial swindles of all time is in full swing. The Washington Post looks at three new books out on Madoff, none of which seem to offer [...]

In an impromptu press conference today on the White House lawn, President Obama tried to channel anger about AIG multi-million dollar bonuses towards reform of the financial system to make sure this sort of situation doesn’t happen again.

The stock market continued its cliff diving today, with both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Standard and Poor’s 500 Index closing at their lowest levels in more than a decade — cementing worries about the deepening recession.
As Calculated Risk puts it, it’s time to party like it’s 1997.

Today is Timothy Geithner’s turn in the spotlight, as his confirmation hearings to become treasury secretary begin. The New York Times asks economists and other experts for some questions lawmakers ought to shoot at Geithner. Some excerpts:
Ordinary taxpayers would like an answer to this question: Why have they been billed more than $45 billion to [...]

I hate to bring this up, given all the good feelings today, but as Washington celebrates, Wall Street had a record Inauguration Day slide, led by fears that banks are in terrible shape and getting worse, CNBC reports.
Financial shares alone fell to a 14-year low, Bloomberg added:
State Street Corp., the largest money manager for institutions, [...]

If you’re spending yet another day keeping an eye on falling stock markets and hoping against a catastrophic collapse of global markets by this afternoon, it’s helpful to follow Floyd Norris at the New York Times as he liveblogs the events.
For example, Norris points that some stocks actually are up today, among them MasterCard.
He doesn’t [...]

Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson tried to push Congress into accepting the administration’s bailout plan. But the House pushed back. Hard.

Even if the White House pitch included measures to help homeowners, experts say restructuring disparate, toxic mortgages would prove difficult.

With an embedded TWI/ANP video, Pain on Main St.

Sen. Barack Obama is opening a new line of attack against Sen. John McCain, his Republican rival, arguing that a vote for McCain could endanger Social Security as we know it. That’s technically true, but highly unlikely.
Last week, I reported that the financial crisis enabled Democrats to attack McCain on Social Security privatization — [...]