Mish at Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis is getting emails from readers that tell him that the FDIC is really cracking down on a number of banks' lending habits. It seems federal auditors are combing through the books of lending institutions and requiring that they downgrade or call in loans that are not yet problematic but could be at risk of becoming problematic over time. This is not good news for small businesses or home buyers.
The Dow sinks below a major psychological threshold.
The Dow, down almost 104 points, had its 10th triple-digit move in 16 trading days. Shares of big banks pulled the market lower, extending a slump that has led to four straight weekly losses.
I can't, for the life of me, understand why bank stocks would be dropping. Inexplicable.
A warning from my favorite economic analyst, Donald Luskin.
Don't think that Republicans can't be sucked in when an anti-Wall Street lynch mob gets its blood up. Recall that Sarbanes-Oxley, the devastating antigrowth response in 2002 to the Enron and Worldcom scandals, was passed with virtually unanimous support by Republicans in Congress, and signed by a Republican president. Recall that last year 85 House Republicans voted for a 90% tax on bonuses for any employee of any bank that took more than $5 billion in TARP money.
As our country rapidly transitions into fascism on its way to communism, the government is seizing alarming new powers with every passing day. Once Americans would have taken up arms to stop outrages like this:
Treasury Secretary Geithner and the Obama administration are claiming that taxpayers will be adequately protected in the new bank bailout scheme they are peddling on Capitol Hill today. However, John Carney at Clusterstock says that "the Obama administration either doesn't understand (the plan) or is lying about it." Cynics would claim that President Obama and his Treasury Secretary not only understand the plan but are lying about it also.
Yesterday I wrote about the outrageous bank bailout plan that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will propose to Congress. As the details of the plan continue to be analyzed by folks that enjoy dissecting legislation like this it is becoming more evident that taxpayers are going to pay a heavy price for the Obama administration's scheme.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's plan to fix the bank problem is coming into focus this weekend. Based on initial reports it appears the Obama administration is going to attempt a variation of the "bad bank" cum "private investor" approach that was employed during the Texas Savings and Loan meltdown twenty years ago. This is probably why Paul Krugman is so teed off today:
