Under pressure, AIG revealed what it did with the bailout money. It came as no shock to us to discover Goldman Sachs at the top of the list of recipients. Goldman’s main man was in the room with the feds – the only representative of Wall Street – when the decision was made to rescue AIG. What’s more, the feds’ main man at the time – Hank Paulson – also used to be the top honcho at Goldman.
March 18th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 1 comment | ContinuedAll Posts Tagged With: "aig"
Huge Inflation
Distract from what? Huge inflation. Yes. Yes. We know. There is no huge inflation now. In fact, industrial production in the United States fell for the fourth month in a row. It hasn’t been this low since 2002. But then, why would output grow when demand is falling and credit remains tight?
March 17th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 1 comment | Continued
The World Needs More Richard Bransons
Not to be a Danny Downer, but arguably worse news comes out of Japan. There we learn that Japan ran its first current account deficit in 13 years-shocking news for an economy that’s driven by export growth. Exports fell a mind-boggling 46.3% from the year before.
March 10th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 1 comment | Continued
Substantial Doubt
But GM has friends in high places…ready to lean on the scales of Mr. Market’s justice. The automaker has already borrowed $13.4 billion. It is asking for another $30 billion. But what kind of a dope would lend $30 billion to a company whose own auditors say they’re worried that it might go out of business?
March 10th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
A Time of Contradictions, Paradoxes and Oxymorons
The socialists are the only ones protecting the free market, now. Americans are scuttling it with every chance they get. The stocks of capitalist companies are going up in communist China…but in America, they’re going down. Since November, the Shanghai index has outperformed the S&P by 75%.
March 6th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 2 comments | Continued
Downfall of the American Consumer
Not surprisingly, consumers are in trouble…so are the banks than lent them money…and so are the countries where they live. Nine of these nations – an Eastern European bloc – got together and asked the European governing council for help. They said they needed $380 billion to get through this crisis. Angela Merkel, speaking for the French and Germans, said no.
March 5th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 3 comments | Continued
A Depression With A Capital ‘D’
Thus saith Mr. Michael Geoghegan, head of HSBC, the world’s biggest bank. HSBC bought America’s “Household Finance” for $15 billion in 2003. Now, it wishes it hadn’t. The U.S. unit ‘destroyed’ $10 billion in capital, says the bank.
March 4th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 5 comments | Continued
The Economic Illiterati
The “Australian economy has not experienced the sort of large contraction seen elsewhere,” wrote RBA Governor Glenn Stevens in the note that went out with the announcement. “The Australian financial system remains strong and the monetary policy transmission process is working to deliver large reductions in interest rates to end borrowers.”
March 4th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 9 comments | Continued
Fire Chief Bernanke
The Federal Reserve, under the leadership of Ben Bernanke, called out all the fire trucks and opened up all the hoses. Rates were cut to zero…and the Fed expanded its balance sheet – increasing the amount of credit available to the banking system – by nearly $1 trillion.
March 3rd, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 4 comments | Continued
The Trouble With Banks
Meanwhile, there is not much we can tell you that you don’t already know about the global rout in stocks. Wall Street is at twelve- year lows. The FTSE is at six-year lows. And here in Australia the market has opened lower than its five-year low, as you’d expect after such a wretched overnight performance on global markets.
March 3rd, 2009 | Dan Denning | 6 comments | Continued
Come And Get It!
General Motors just reported a loss for the fourth quarter of nearly $10 billion. You can see what good it does to bail out failing companies…the money just goes down the drain. The government gave GM more than $13 billion – there goes the bulk of it.
March 2nd, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
AIG to Receive $85 Billion Loan from Fed
What will be the result of this big bailout of AIG? We don’t have to guess. We just have to look across the broad Pacific – at Japan…
September 18th, 2008 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
