Monday, March 23, 2009

Geithner Releases Public/Private Investment Partnership, Dow Soars 497

Feels like springtime in Obamaland today! Markets worldwide responded favorably to the Tim Geithner's Public/Private Investment Partnership to restore solvency in America's too-big-to-fail banks. But will his plan, in its author's words, get "our financial system back to the business of providing credit to working families and viable businesses, and help prevent future crises?" Here's a running list of responses PRO, CON and NEUTRAL
  • John Authers asks an underlieing question about bank solvency (3/23)
  • Bill Gross buys in (3/23 CNBC video)
  • Paul Krugman all but despairs over the Geithner plan (3/23)
  • Clive Crook asks Krugman to think twice (3/23)
  • Tim Geithner argues that his plan is "part of an overall strategy to resolve the crisis as quickly and effectively as possible at least cost to the taxpayer. " (3/23)
  • Yves Smith, riffing off a WSJ editorial, talks about Fed rescue plan exit strategies (3/23)
  • Mike Whitney protests the Geithner plan's 5%/95% public/private investor ratio (3/23)
  • Felix Salmon warns that the plan is yet another "thing-that-has-to-go right in order . . . to work." (3/23)
  • Wall Street Journal says the plan "isn't the worst idea the federal government has ever had" (3/24)
  • "NYT "Opinionator" quotes from five mainstream media takes on the plan (3/24)
  • NYT "Room For Debate" compares responses to the Geithner plan of Krugman, Simon Johnson, Brad DeLong, Mark Thoma (3/24)
  • Mike Hudson takes a broad 3,000 year view to today's financial crisis in this 10 minute video (2/20). Here's his indispensable 2006 Harper's cover story, "The New Road to Serfdom: an Illustrated Guide to the Coming Real Estate Collapse"
  • New York Times voices doubts about the Geithner plan (3/24)
  • Joseph Stiglitz says the plan robs the taxpayer (3/24)
  • Martin Wolf says an adequate rescue plan is still far away (3/24)
  • Czech President of the European Union calls the plan "A way to hell". Also, Financial Times (3/25)
  • Rick Santelli of CNBC asks protests "two years" of government neglect of Nouriel Roubini's warnings about dangers of government exacerbation/funding of the credit bubble. (Go to 7:30 of this 10 minute February Durable Goods Report (Alt. link: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1072009974&play=1. s ) (3/25)
  • London Economist sits on the fence (3/25)
  • Nouriel Roubini, "Dr. Doom," sees POSITIVES in the plan! (3/25)
  • Lee Brodie, of CNBC's Fast Money crew, says Geithner may have rescued America (3/25)
  • New York Post reporter Mark DeCambre says Geithner plan lets City and B of A "buy back laundered loans at lower rates" (3/25)
  • Yves Smith, finance blogger, approves Willem Buiter of F.T. taking "Fed and Treasury to Task" (3/26)
  • Steve Waldman, finance writer, critique New Yorker finance writer James Surowiecki (scroll down to 3/25)
  • Investor's Business Daily, citing Friedrich Hayek, warns against government (bureaucrat) control of the economy (3/27)
  • Nouriel Roubini in this 20 min. Bloomberg TV interview says the plan "won't stop bank nationalizations" (3/28)
  • Newsweek article says Treasury Secretary Geithner is "hitting his stride" (3/28)
  • Newsweek Cover Story says the White House is ignoring Paul Krugman's criticisms of the Geithner plan (3/28)
  • Jeffrey Sachs, Yale economist, asks "Will Geithner and Summers Succeed in Raiding the FDIC and Fed?"
  • Mike Whitney, finance writer, citing DeCambre, Sachs and Stiglitz says "the country will undergo the greatest period of bank consolidation in its 230 year history."
  • New York Times charges Congress with "bipartisan resistance to a thorough investigation of what caused the collapse" (3/29)
  • Richard Posner, U.C. Law and jurist, says the Geithner plan "will simplify the banks' balance sheets by removing assets of uncertain value and replacing them with cash (3/29)
  • Gary Becker, U.C economist and Nobelist, says "it is a strange program indeed where banks get subsidized in proportion to how many 'bad' assets they hold." (3/31)
  • Joseph Stiglitz, Nobelist, says government overleveraging replicates the bank overleveraging that caused the meltdown.(4/1)
  • Jonathan Weil , Bloomberg, "Obama Stakes His Fortunes on Failed Banksters" (4/9)
  • Mike Whitney examines the recent report on the Geithner bank rescue plan released by the Congressional Oversight Committee chaired by Elizabeth Warren.(4/11)
  • Jeff Cox at CNBC.com says "Flood of US Debt Threatens To 'Crowd Out' Other Borrowers" (4/13)
  • Financial Times Tarp investigator seeks evidence of book fiddling (4/13)
  • Nouriel Roubini coming on strong for the first time in several weeks, says "Testing the Stress Test Scenarios: Actual Macro Data Are Already Worse than the More Adverse Scenario for 2009 in the Stress Tests. So the Stress Tests Fail the Basic Criterion of Reality Check Even Before They Are Concluded" (4/13)
  • Elizabeth Warren, Harvard Professor and Chair of the Congressional Oversight Committee, is interviewed by John Daley at Comedy Central (4/15)
  • Simon Johnson, MIT economist and former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, argues in the Atlantic Monthly that "the financial industry has effectively captured our government" and that "recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform" (5/09)
  • Geithner Testimony arguing for bank stability sparks Wall Street rally (4/21).
  • No comments: