Recently, the financial news has been dominated by the Federal Reserve's massive intervention in the 'repo' market.  Repo is short for repurchase, and the repo market is essentially a market dedicated to huge volumes of very short term - often overnight - loans.  The loans are not used to fund legitimate wealth producing activities.  Instead, their purpose is to allow financial s

Today, September 15, marks the anniversary of Lehman Brother's failure in 2008.  Many people believe the financial crisis developed over the "Lehman weekend" in 2008.  Lehman failed on a Monday morning, and over the preceding weekend there was an industry wide effort - led of course by the Treasury Department and the NY Fed - to organize a bailout of Lehman.  It was over this wee

This week saw considerable fanfare regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the huge government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that dominate the mortgage market.  On September 05, 2008 the GSEs were placed into conservatorship - essentially declared bankrupt - and bailed out.  Each company received $100-billion in new capital to make good their huge lending losses.  Additional ca

Because it is Labor Day - and because I had to work all weekend!

From its March 2000 peak to its October 2002 bottom, the NASDAQ declined almost 80%.  In a speech at Jackson Hole on August 30, 2002 Greenspan offered the following defense for his role in the stock bubble and the Fed's failure to do anything about it;