Milken 2012 Tackles Growth and Fiscal Health
The recent “2012 Milken Institute’s Global Conference” had some very interesting panel discussions. Here are links to our favorite three panels: Read full post...
Ex-Im Bank Reauthorization Should Include Fair Value
House lawmakers may reach a bipartisan deal this week to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank of the United States. Any reauthorization deal should require that official cost estimates for the bank’s lending activities reflect fair value. Read full post...
FOMC Projections Improve, Dovish Rate Forecasts Slowly Losing Wings
The most recent FOMC meeting kept interest rates at near-zero levels for the fortieth straight month. Despite holding rates steady, members did show a changing outlook regarding the US economy in the second installment of the Fed’s publicly released forecasts. Forecasts for unemployment improved slightly as the Fed now expects the overall rate to drop to 8.0% by year-end. Inflation pressures have increased with the rise in gasoline prices. Read full post...
TARP’s Illusory Profits
The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was recently claimed by the Treasury department to be likely to recoup the money it spent trying to prop up the economy. While that would be wonderful news, judging the impact of a huge financial program like TARP on the federal budget is much more complex that simply totaling dollars in and dollars out.Daniel Indiviglio of Reuters applied some basic financial accounting techniques to determine that TARP is actually likely to cost the taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. Read full post...
CBO Update on TARP Disbursements and Costs
The Congressional Budget Office’s Report on the Troubled Asset Relief Program—March 2012 provides updated analysis of the program started in October 2008. The report concludes that as of February 2012, $431 billion of the possible $700 billion has been disbursed. More than half of that has already been repaid and AIG’s $50 billion represents nearly 40% of payments still outstanding. Read full post...
Too Big to Succeed? Central Bank Balance Sheets Continue to Balloon
Since 2006 the balance sheets of the eight largest central banks around the globe have nearly tripled--now totaling almost $15 trillion. Much of this explosion, seen in the chart below from Ritzholtz.com, can be attributed to asset purchases by the Fed, ECB, and BOJ, each of whom has sought new means of monetary easing with their benchmark rates near zero. A perspective on the sheer size of these balance sheets can be obtained by comparing their sum to the entire market capitalization of global equity markets. The $15 trillion held by major central banks is approximately 33% of the global equity market capitalization. In 2007 it was a mere 10%. Read full post...
Econometeorology
A new economic discipline seems to have emerged over the past several months: econometeorology, the explanation of the economy through weather patterns.
Read full post...Hennessey's Agenda Could Serve House Republicans Well
Congressional Republicans are poised to unveil their new legislative agenda and plan for the rest of this election year. Reports are House Republican leaders began meeting Tuesday to discuss personal and corporate taxation policy, entitlement reform, energy policy, Obamacare, debt reduction, and ideas for appropriate deregulation for the private sector. While details are sparse ahead of the agenda's formulation and release, Keith Hennessey presented ten principles for a Republican agenda shortly after the 2010 mid-term elections. Read full post...
Libor Marked for Review, Could It Get Benched?
For almost three decades the British Banking Association has determined the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), the benchmark rate for much of the global financial world and over $350 trillion in securities. However, the BBA’s days of polling the rates at which large banks lend to each other and then taking the mean of the middle 50% could be numbered. Read full post...
Should Eurozone Worries Ease as ECB Balance Sheet Grows?
With the undertaking of its second long-term refinancing operation (LTRO) the ECB now holds roughly 25% more assets on its balance sheet than the Fed. LTRO2 added another €530 billion to the central bank’s holdings, which now registers a record €3.02 trillion ($3.96 trillion) much larger than the Fed’s $2.9 trillion in assets. Read full post...
e21 EVENT, May 21
MOST POPULAR
TODAY'S NEWS
e21 IS SOCIAL
Reaction