Financial Markets

For you Fed-heads, the papers from the Fed’s Ja

The old high (in terms of closing prices) in the XAU gold stock index was 168.62 during May of 2006

Alan Greenspan is in the news a lot currently because of the release of his new book. I haven’t read the book.

At least it will give us something to do until we figure out where next to hitch up the engine of inflation. At which point we can once again cast off the hair shirts, put on our gladrags, and throw another wild, exuberant, but ultimately destructive, orgy of high living and hot money — and devil take the hindmost!

Given the wide variety of assets it can accept (in particular, non-AAA MBS), the Fed also has the potential to get itself into plenty of trouble, the sort of trouble that might require it to seek an even larger expansion of its powers.

The media is reporting that George Bush has ruled out a government bailout of mortgage lenders, but instead, the Bush package is sure to

With the collapse in the price of sub-prime mortgage backed securities and credit derivatives, the credit boom has moved into the crisis phase.

Unfortunately, by buying up MBS and propping up the market the Fed will only cause more harm than it already has.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the dollar could be ready for another beating.

I was speaking to a banker this past weekend who put the blame on the subprime problem squarely on the campaign against “