reports

  • 24 Aug 2011 at 4:31 PM

Fed Researchers Conclude Barney Frank Didn’t Cause The Housing Crisis

By Matt Levine

The Fed today released a paper in its Finance and Economics Discussion Series that looks into whether the subprime bubble was caused by the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires banks to lend to lower-income borrowers, or by Fannie and Freddie lowering credit standards for low-income borrowers. Short answer: no. Continue reading »

  • 27 Jul 2011 at 10:50 AM

If You Read Only One 192-Page Report on the Financial System Today, Make It This One

By Matt Levine

Oops

The Financial Stability Oversight Council, the Treasury-Fed-SEC-FDIC-etc.-etc. joint venture designated by Dodd-Frank to prevent another financial crisis, released its first annual report last night and can we just say that we love it?

The purpose of the report is to convery recommendations about where the regulators see systemic risk. Some are expected (bank capital and liquidity issues, derivatives clearing, high frequency trading, housing market stabilization), but there are also some things that have fallen out of headlines, like: Continue reading »

  • 14 Apr 2011 at 11:47 AM

Senate Subcommittee Report Shows Ratings Agencies Willing To Be Defiled By Paying Customers, Able To Look In The Mirror By Pretending To Have Standards To Each Other

By Bess Levin

Late last evening, Senator Carl Levin released a report of his investigation into the financial crisis entitled “Wall Street And The Financial Crisis: Anatomy Of A Financial Collapse.” The majority of the blame goes toward investment banks, particularly Goldman Sachs (described by Levin- no relation- as “a financial snake pit rife with greed, conflicts of interest, and wrongdoing”), as well as Deutsche Bank, whose former trader, Greg Lippmann (he of “I’m short your house” and sushi spreadsheet fame) gets a lot of airtime. Also criticized are the ratings agencies, who Levin says “weakened their standards as each compete to provide the most favorable rating to win business and greater market share.” To that end, the Senator from Michigan illustrates his point with a story about Standard & Poor’s and UBS. Continue reading »

  • 01 Feb 2011 at 9:35 AM

Meredith Whitney Discusses Guesstimating Defaults Over Egg Whites

By Bess Levin

Whitney doesn’t have specific numbers backing up her now- famous prediction, she said in a Jan. 30 interview. “Quantifying is a guesstimate at this point,” she said. “I was giving an approximation of a magnitude that will bear out to be correct.” A copy of the 43-page report doesn’t mention sizable defaults amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars. A person who has seen a long addendum that profiles the 15 top states said that the longer portion doesn’t, either. “We are not calling for any specific defaults within the scope of this report,” the document says on page 42. An opening summary says there will “invariably” be local defaults, without elaborating. “A lot of this is, You know it, but can you prove it?” Whitney said over a breakfast of scrambled egg whites with a chicken-apple sausage, a side of salsa and peppermint tea at the Four Seasons Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. “There are fifth-derivative dimensions that I don’t think I need to spell out to my clients,” she said. [Bloomberg]

  • 05 Jan 2011 at 10:30 AM

UBS Gets Its Bible On

By Bess Levin

“Lend not unto him that is mightier than thyself; for if thou lendest him, count it but lost. ” Continue reading »

  • 27 Oct 2010 at 3:39 PM

The Best Lines From The White House’s Rebuttal To The SIGTARP Report

By Bess Levin

Earlier this week, Troubled Asset Relief Program’s inspector general Neil Barofsky issued a report noting that the Treasury’s estimate that it will lose $5 billion on its AIG TARP investment “represents a dramatic shift from the $45 billion loss that Treasury had projected in its AIG investment just six months earlier.” Barofsky went on to say that “while AIG’s fortune may have indeed improved during the course of those six months, there is a serious question over how much of this decrease comes from a change in Treasury’s methodology for calculating the loss as opposed to AIG’s improved prospects.” Some people did not like that. This morning, the White House took it its blog to respond. These are its best moments, starting with the first line:

* Some people just don’t like movies with happy endings.

* How else to explain this week’s report by the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP)? Continue reading »

  • 16 Aug 2010 at 6:15 PM

Interesting Theories: Goldman Sachs Execs Starting To Give A Rat’s What People Think About Them

By Bess Levin

In the wake of the SEC charges, the bank is reportedly doing some serious “soul-searching” and “heading down a spiritual journey,” which may lead to some sort of “revolutionary announcement.” What could it be? That the prop team being “spun off” into a separate hedge fund will actually spend its days in a rented office space on Third Avenue working on a letter writing campaign to bring back Zubaz, Lloyd Blankfein’s preferred choice of pant? Stay tuned. [Reuters]