Video Update: POTUS Signs the Act-WooHoo! Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passes House..to POTUS for signature…
Video:
UPDATE 1/29 :The first second signed legislation of this Administration will may IS be the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act…
Just signed!! Lilly and Hillary are there!! WOOHOO!!!!
BSG The Oath…BSGcast Interview and Review: Michael Hogan (Tigh) and A Disquiet Follows My Soul (BSG)
and Promo from Canada for Episode 4.13 The Oath
Breaking: Obama Administration close to announcing ‘bad bank’ plan…
CNBC Steve Liesman breaking story….
Bad Bank Busted! Cops send away eager new 'investors' looking for a cheap thrill and a quick profit! bad bad bank, no more loans for you!.....
Sources tell CNBC that a possible bad bank plan is taking shape in the Administration, possibly to be announced next week.
plan to purchase illiquid assets from banks…so called, bad bank plan would address the key issue of how to price the assets by using a model pricing mechanism..
the model would take into account the government’s ability to hold onto assets until maturity and apply cheap funding with the result that the govt might end up paying more than current pricing for the securities..
OTOH, the govt may pay less..possible the price at which the asset is valued on the banks books and the bank would issue common stock..
Under the possible plan, banks could issue common equity to the government (in previous deals the companies issued Preferred equity, thus diluting common shareholders, like moi on BofA)
Conclusion is growing within govt, sources say, that preferred equity is not cutting it (no shxt says MiM why would I buy ANY common stock on ANY financial now when the govt will dilute me or even as with AIG wipe me out??)
Preferred equity seen as insufficient to make banks healthy..
Idea of bad bank is gaining momentum on Capitol Hill says Liesman. He indicates today Sen Dodd said he is ‘aware’ of the discussions on a bad bank and it makes some sense to him..
FWIW we at MiM suspect Sheila Bair is behind the bad bank idea and Geithner is fighting it, as he has been all along under the watch of Paulson and Kashkari..Geithner will need a big push from Frank to get this HOLC going as well say we at MiM..
back to Steve’s report:
also talk of the government supplying a ‘certificate of net worth’ to the banks for funding..no further details yet..
Treasury Official said nothing would be announced this week and no clarification was given on TARP or funding for this plan…and said they cannot comment on decisions yet to be announced..
Here is Krugman on the idea of a bad bank in his January 17th column:
It comes back to the original questions about the TARP. Financial institutions that want to “get bad assets off their balance sheets” can do that any time they like, by writing those assets down to zero — or by selling them at whatever price they can. If we create a new institution to take over those assets, the $700 billion question is, at what price? And I still haven’t seen anything that explains how the price will be determined.
I suspect, though I’m not certain, that policymakers are once more coming around to the view that mortgage-backed securities are being systematically underpriced. But do we really know this? And how are we going to ensure that this doesn’t end up being a huge giveaway to financial firms?
I’m not dead set against this proposal — but I’m still waiting for some explanation of why this is supposed to be more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Gee, Krugman seems to think we aren’t addressing the underlying problem.. GEE YA THINK!! FIX THE FRAKIN HOUSING!!!!
Case-Shiller Index released…worse than expected…home values drop 18%…
and the beat goes on….
That’s no ordinary twister folks!
That is falling housing prices…Kudlow used to play this clip and laugh at A Gary Shilling who called this crisis for what it was in 2005..no one is laughing now….how many people can afford to take a 50% drop in their home values? In Phoenix we are there already….the only good news I can see in this report is surely Team Obama will MOVE on housing NOW…(hey don’t call me shirley…)
Professor Blitzer of S & P reporting live on CNBC says 11 of 20 cities across the country are in record declines…
Via Marketwatch:
Prices fell 3.4% in Phoenix and 3.3% in Las Vegas in November. In the past year, prices were down 33% in Phoenix, 32% in Las Vegas, and 31% in San Francisco.
-snip-
Falling home values have helped to plunge the global financial system into chaos because of mortgage-backed securities. Home owners have lost trillions of dollars of wealth
CNBC:
Prices of single-family homes plunged a record 18.2 percent in November from a year earlier, indicative of a housing market that is still in the throes of a deep recession, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.
The composite index of 20 metropolitan areas fell 2.2 percent in November from October, S&P said in a statement on Tuesday. The depreciation on a month-over-month basis was slightly worse than expectations based on a Reuters survey of economists.
-snip-
The freefall in residential real estate continued through November 2008,” David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s, said in a statement.
Why Case-Schiller Index matters to you courtesy of the Examiner:
…If you want to understand the Case Shiller index better, I recommend the multimedia graph set up by the New York Times. It shows each individual city, and looks back to 2001, so you have a better perspective on how prices have trended, instead of just hearing the year over year or month over month number. This page is dedicated to the index….
This economy will NOT improve until housing is addressed, period. Get to it Team Obama….
Here is Gary Shilling telling us what was coming in November of 2006…taking heat from Bulls like Luskin and Kudlow…note the DOW closed over 12,000 in this clip from 11/27/06….as they discuss Goldilocks economy and laugh at Gary Shilling’s warnings about the housing bubble…not laughing much now….
Economic Data today…
This week’s Economic Data to watch via Reuters
at MiM our eyes are all for Case Schiller….What kind of data would it take for Geithner to move on mortgage mods with TARP Tranche two NOW instead of March….I hope we don’t have to find out…
07:45 AM
CNBC wars: Gasparino vs. everyone else….
and go see today’s Call of the Wild here
Dealbreaker a year ago:
….We think it’s unfair that CNBC anchor Erin Burnett is allegedly taking shit from network brass for being a lover of the finer things in life. So for the rest of January, we’re going to give you 8 Ways To Impress [anchor of your choice]. Today we’ll start with Charlie Gasparino:
1. Buying me a week’s worth of martinis at Tropix …( my favorite joint in Rego Park, where they have a lax policy on underage drinking, would earn you big points in my book.
2. The proper work out gear keeps me calm when I’m getting pumped. Buy me a ten-pack of Champion sweatshirts. Show me you care by taking the time to cut off the sleeves (so that when I go back to the studio after whaling on my pecs, my veins are exposed for the staff’s leering delight).
3. Finding the high end BowFlex–the one with the pull up bar, not the shitty one I bought for myself last Christmas–at my door would be great.
4. My contributions to literature and understanding are a passion of mine, so a gathering with a roomful of literati and Wall Street titans, especially Dick Grasso and Phil Purcell (if you can find him), to hear me read my favorite passages, would make for an exceptional evening. For all involved…..
MiM here, a review of Charlie’s lastest:
Gasparino, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, had excellent access to [Grasso]. . . . This, combined with the author’s entree to financial Goliaths such as former Merill Lynch & Co. CEO David Komansky and Home Depot Inc. co-founder Kenneth Langone, steep the book in rich detail. . . . He paints a portrait of the goings-on at NYSE board meetings that only tireless reporting and good connections can provide. . . .The book does a great job at describing Grasso’s efforts to market an institution that by many accounts has been on the slow journey to extinction ever since the invention of the microchip. — Susan Antilla, Bloomberg News
More of Charlie’s greatest voice mails , audio at the link, from Dealbreaker:
Update: After leaving him several threatening-ish sounding voicemails, we finally got in touch with Mr. Gasparino, who shed some light. Regarding the first message, he doesn’t remember what it was about. The second two were apparently left after he’d been lied to about Lehman Brothers COO Joseph Gregory and CFO Erin Callan getting fired, and needed to “put the pedal to the metal.” Though other journalists might’ve vehemently denied having left such messages, for fear of being called out for juicing, No Sleeves stood his ground.
“I’m unfazed [by the fact that someone put the voicemails on YouTube],” NS told Dealbreaker. “You should’ve seen and heard me ten years ago. I’m mellow now.” Gasparino did add, however, that whoever decided to upload and make public his cell phone number (which we removed from our clip), should sleep with one eye open, because his “buddies at the FBI are going to find out who you are.”
Update 2: Let it be known that Gasparino was the one to break the Gregory/Callan Story.
Update 3: Since we had him on the phone again, we asked No Sleeves why he chose not to curse in any of his messages. They were great, obviously, but a few well-timed ‘mother-fucker’s could’ve really added something special, not to mention probably have gotten the recipients to call back. According to Sans Sleeves, “I didn’t curse because I was on vacation in San Diego and calling from my hotel room, and my wife was within earshot.”
ginaswo
