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’Albert the (financial) Populist
Albert Edwards is with Terry Smith on this one. If Shredded Fred must lose his knighthood, then certain other players in this game of bubble and crunch need to forego an honour or two.
But while Smith has focused on Sir Alan Greenspan,
Are western central banks having an existential crisis?
David Wessel over at the Wall Street Journal has followed up on a story FT Alphaville has been covering for a while. That the world economy is running out of super-safe financial assets, and that this is doing untold damage to central banks’ abilities to control interest rates (the last bit is our spin).
Meme competition! Maestro edition
Like a caption competition, but better.
An idea shamelessly cadged off Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber, although since it’s in aid of kicking Alan Greenspan, why not?
Henry thinks this euphemistic part of the ex-Maestro’s op-ed on Dodd-Frank needs immortalising as an internet meme:
The rantings of an ex-maestro
Alan Greenspan’s latest in CFR’s International Finance, wherein the former Fed chair blames ‘government activism‘ for the current (paltry) state of the US recovery.
And a big thanks to Paul Krugman for the title.
Night of the Living Fed
It’s not just FT Alphaville’s Tracy Alloway who is a dab hand with the MS Paint programme.
GMO’s Jeremy Grantham is also good.
Very good in fact.
That’s taken from Grantham’s Q3 investment letter where he looks at the ruinous cost of Fed manipulation of asset prices and what can be done to stop it.
The bond-stock decoupling is quite the Conundrum, Citi says
Bond yields are falling, falling, falling . . . but global equity markets simply don’t seem to care:
Global stock prices have rallied 6 per cent over the past six weeks, while global bond yields have fallen a collective 25 basis points,
What the Fed’s boringness begot
Last week the analysts at Deutsche Bank blamed the erstwhile boringness of central bank policy — or at least its predictability — for fueling the financial crisis.
Mortgage expert and George Soros-advisor Alan Boyce has a similar idea:
Boringness of central banks to blame for bubbles
As former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan argues that the pre-financial crisis bubble was the result of mortgage rates megabanks subprime expansion a global savings glut simply (uncontrollable) appetite for risk,
Subprime: it’s back in the headlines
A pair of subprime mentions caught FT Alphaville’s collective eyes on Wednesday.
First up, Alan Greenspan, who testified to the US Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that ‘it was the global proliferation of securitized US subprime mortgages that was the immediate trigger of the current crisis’.
FCIC TV – catch it now
Go here to watch Alan Greenspan blame everyone/thing but himself. Prepared testimony to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission available here.
The FT’s Simone Baribeau is live blogging the proceedings over on Money Supply.
Pricing risk redux
Alternate title: Irrational exuberance – the sequel.
Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan is offering his explanation of the financial meltdown in a paper to be presented at the Brookings Institute on Friday.
Greenspan says, je regrette quelque chose
The Crisis, by Alan Greenspan.
It sounds like an airport novel. But the 66-page paper is the closest we’ve ever gotten to a mea culpa from the former Fed chief, who chaired the US central bank in the midst of a growing housing bubble.
And a round of applause for those who blew up the economy…
We’d never heard of the Dynamite Awards before, but they appear to be — in ethos at least — a distant cousin of the notorious Darwins.
But unlike the Darwin Awards, these gongs aren’t handed out to those who’ve managed to kill themselves in inordinately silly ways.
Meet the best bank on the Street
America’s beleaguered investment banks will have fourth-quarter earnings competition from an unlikely source: The Federal Reserve.
An analysis by the Washington Post has the central bank earning a whopping $45bn last year — about 42 per cent more than in 2008.
Smithers: ‘We will muddle through’
Economist and uber-pundit Andrew Smithers is on a roll, having drawn attention in the financial media this week with his latest report contending that the US stock market is 40 per cent overvalued.
Smithers – who regularly opines on everything from Japan to the US stock markets and UK monetary policy – also has central bankers firmly in his sights with his new book,
Green shoots panned
Another day, another notable green-shoot whacker emerges. Thursday’s turn is that of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.
As Bloomberg reports (our emphasis):
May 21 (Bloomberg) — Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan signaled that the financial crisis has yet to end even as borrowing costs tumble,
Financial figures through Google goggles
Guido Fawkes has alerted us to the fun to be had with the new predictive function on Google searches.
While most of them reveal a worrying anti-semitic streak (even in the case of Allen Stanford, who by all accounts is a rather fervent Christian) and an obsession with public figures’ wives,
Would YOU start a bank in the current environment?
Because apparently, Alan Greenspan would. From the WSJ.
Related links:
Fed official sees economic improvement midyear – WSJ
How to start a bank - eHow
Criminal negligence, or just insane?
Going about his usual innocent business (predicting a 10 per cent GDP shrinkage peak to trough; a Great Unwind 2, as massive global external imbalances produce a major liquidity squeeze amongst emerging markets and other producers of commodities),
Interest rates and the housing bubble: less maestro, redux
On Wednesday, Alan Greenspan, former maestro, exculpated himself from blame for the Mess We’re In in a WSJ editorial.
David Merkel at the Aleph blog, and ourselves here (less maestro, more ingénue),
Less maestro, more ingénue
From Mr Alan Greenspan:
There are at least two broad and competing explanations of the origins of this crisis. The first is that the “easy money” policies of the Federal Reserve produced the U.S. housing bubble that is at the core of today’s financial mess.
Greenspan backs bank nationalisation
The US government may have to temporarily nationalise some banks to fix the financial system and restore credit flows, former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan told the FT. Temporary nationalisation could be the least bad option left for policymakers,
The demise of irrational exuberance
Crisis factoid du jour, via Bloomberg:
Alan Greenspan can stop worrying about “irrational exuberance” in the U.S. stock market, 12 years after he warned investors that share prices were rising too fast.
‘I made a mistake,’ admits Greenspan
Alan Greenspan, the former US Fed chairman, said the credit crisis had exceeded anything he had imagined and admitted he was wrong to think that banks would protect themselves from financial market chaos.
Greenspan warns of more bank bail-outs
More banks and financial institutions could end up being bailed out by governments before the credit crisis is over, Alan Greenspan, the former Fed chairman, warns in an article in Tuesday’s FT. However,
Greenspan: 50% chance of US recession
The US is still more likely than not to suffer a recession despite the relative stabilisation in the economy in recent weeks, Alan Greenspan told the FT. The former Fed chairman said there is “a greater than 50% probability of recession” though it had receded a little.
The ‘Span speaks: The US is in “an awfully pale recession”
Alan Greenspan is at it again – making Ben Bernanke’s life difficult.
This time, the former Fed chairman told Bloomberg that the US has slipped into a recession – albeit an “awfully pale” one – and may continue to languish for the rest of the year.
Pink Picks
Comment and analysis in the FT on Wednesday,
Comment: Martin Wolf — Don’t blame Greenspan
When a wave of destruction hits, everybody looks for somebody to blame. Alan Greenspan, former Fed chairman,
The ’Span — again: It’s a recession
Former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan said Tuesday the US economy was in recession, and said it would be appropriate to tap public funds to resolve the mortgage-related crisis that has helped pull the economy under,
Don’t blame me, guv; The ‘Span hits back
Alan Greenspan has hit back at critics who blame the Fed under his leadership for causing the US housing bubble by keeping interest rates too low for too long in the early 2000s, saying the evidence of any link between monetary policy and the bubble was “statistically very fragile”.