Source:
Will Bank “Stress Tests” Kill Market…or Government Credibility?
Henry Blodget
Tech Ticker, Apr 20, 2009 02:04pm
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/234412/Will-Bank-%22Stress-Tests%22-Kill-Market…or-Government-Credibility
In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone. —John Kenneth Galbraith
Asian currencies continue to sell off vs the $ on the heels of the news yesterday that South Korea said they will look into hot money inflows stemming from the $ carry trade and the Bank of Indonesia said they are looking into the foreign buying of bills. This follows the news a few weeks ago that Taiwan was limiting foreign deposit holdings and Brazil was taxing foreign inflow transactions. As I mentioned yesterday, we may have reached a short term pain threshold in terms of $ weakness and foreign countries are fighting back as they certainly won't wait for...
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April 20th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Last night, I read a headline that said the Obama administration doesn’t think more bailout packages to the banks will be necessary. My Scooby/Astro-like reaction was “uh oh, maybe Wall Street won’t like losing its allowance”.
I’m definitely not sure that’s what caused today’s selling or (perhaps) future selling. But, this announcement of “no more funds” is as reasonable an explanation as “stress tests” or “government credibility”.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Let’s just say “reality” will kill the market. What reality? My perception of reality is that the banks are still insolvent. *That* reality.
If anyone wants to pin it on something else, it perhaps reflects their biases.
April 20th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
wunsacon: agree. Stress test is simply an attempt to sweep the “investment” bank books under the proverbial rug. And people say that Goldman has a brain someplace. And Summers, well can’t forget his paper om women and math. He took the time to write and present the damn thing while President of Harvard. Explains Harvard and Summers. Now he can write one on aliens and accounting.
April 20th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Um, I think we’re already there.
April 21st, 2009 at 12:13 am
Dunnage – not defending Summers, but that was not a paper. It was just remarks the organizers of the event had asked him to make, including their request that he ‘be provative.” The Boston Globe said, in the July 2005 story about the event that, “He said he was synthesizing the scholarship that the organizers had asked him to discuss, and … in his talk he repeated several times: ”I’m going to provoke you.”"
As the mother of a daughter with degrees in EE and computer science, and another daughter with a degree in Food Science Technology, I think I have a fairly rational view of the subject of women in science and math. They actually do have, as Summers said, “innate differences” which could account for why “fewer women succeed in science and math careers. ” The stories my daughters told me about their women classmates amply proved his point!
The fact that one of the people in the audience of 50 who walked out said she had to leave to avoid throwing up or blacking out tells me that he may have had a point.