Our financial system is crumbling this week.

[lukethedrifter]

Taibbi's Bank of America article in RS is absolutely infuriating.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... l-20120314

[longhornbaseball]

Bill Miller and Paul McCulley on the failure of monetary policy in the current environment. Whole bunch of good stuff in this video.

[Freed Roger]

I have no idea whatto make of this.

Argentina takeover/nationalization of publicly traded oil company.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has infuriated Spain, Argentina’s largest foreign investor, but elated many Argentines with the move.

Only two months earlier, Repsol had increased its estimate for the shale oil and gas it found in Argentina to nearly 23 billion barrels, enough to double the country’s output in a decade.

But the Spanish company said it would cost $25 billion a year to develop, and warned that Argentina would need to overhaul its energy policy to attract the necessary investment.

Instead, Fernandez simply seized the company, giving her government access to billions of dollars’ worth of cash, enough energy to answer domestic demand in the short term, and potentially even solving Argentina’s chronic money woes in the future.

[G. Keenan]

I have no idea whatto make of this.

Argentina takeover/nationalization of publicly traded oil company.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has infuriated Spain, Argentina’s largest foreign investor, but elated many Argentines with the move.

Only two months earlier, Repsol had increased its estimate for the shale oil and gas it found in Argentina to nearly 23 billion barrels, enough to double the country’s output in a decade.

But the Spanish company said it would cost $25 billion a year to develop, and warned that Argentina would need to overhaul its energy policy to attract the necessary investment.

Instead, Fernandez simply seized the company, giving her government access to billions of dollars’ worth of cash, enough energy to answer domestic demand in the short term, and potentially even solving Argentina’s chronic money woes in the future.

It's CFK and Argentina so you can't read too much into it. YPF was a state-founded, state-owned company that like several others was sold off at bargain prices to political cronies by the Menem administration in the 90's as part of IMF loan requirements, much like what the IMF has demanded of Greece. When I was there gas was indeed expensive and fuel shortages in certain parts of the country were a real problem. The blame for that probably falls partially on YPF/Repsol and partially on the CFK government. I do worry though about her government's ability to properly run anything, let alone YPF, given the corruption that is rife throughout. They will probably need some outside assistance at first to get the company back up to speed, especially when it comes to exploring new oil fields because that is very complicated and expensive, but I'm sure there will be plenty of oil companies willing to take their money to do that.

[greenback44]

The same bankruptcy that started this thread has given the public access to the compensation structure of an investment bank. And it was fantastic.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-c ... full.story

Less than a year before the 2008 collapse of Lehman Bros. plunged the global economy into a terrifying free fall, the Wall Street firm awarded nearly $700 million to 50 of its highest-paid employees, according to internal documents reviewed by The Times.

The documents, which were among the millions of pages submitted in Lehman's bankruptcy, show the list of top earners each were pledged $8 million to $51 million in cash, stock and other compensation. How much, if any, of the stock was cashed in before the bankruptcy wiped out its value couldn't be determined.

The Lehman documents provide a rare peek into Wall Street compensation practices, because federal regulations require salary disclosure of only the five highest-paid officers of a corporation. The documents reveal, to the dollar, the pay packages promised to individual traders and investment bankers at Lehman — a well-kept secret up to now.

Forget Glass-Steagall, which wouldn't have done anything to stop Lehman Brothers from its fall. The whole idea of a publicly-traded hedge fund is nuts.

[longhornbaseball]

I've always wanted to see Bernanke just crush Ron Paul whenever he asks stupid Austrian questions at Bernanke's testimonies. This is just as good.

Video: Krugman vs Paul on Various Economic Issues

[Michael]

I've always wanted to see Bernanke just crush Ron Paul whenever he asks stupid Austrian questions at Bernanke's testimonies. This is just as good.

Video: Krugman vs Paul on Various Economic Issues

This is amazing. I laughed throughout most of it.

[Freed Roger]

Krugman was [expletive] a gold brick waiting to reply to Ron Paul.

I haven't given this gold standard bizness a lot of thought - but what is the logic behind ? -is it that gold is more limited and tangible than paper thus it makes money real?

if that is the case - then why not the diamond standard or titanium standard?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

There's probably other reasons, but there's been a gold standard before, and I think that market is probably a bit more...mature? than just picking a commodity out of a hat.


My favorite part about Ron Paul being an Austrian econ guy is that he's also a crazy isolationist, on the premise that the US needs to maintain control of its own economy. Apparently step one to keeping a stranglehold on your economy is basing your currency off of something that the rest of the world can take steps to mess with.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

I've always wanted to see Bernanke just crush Ron Paul whenever he asks stupid Austrian questions at Bernanke's testimonies. This is just as good.

Video: Krugman vs Paul on Various Economic Issues

I've gotten to the point where Ron Paul says that it's not a big deal (talking about the debt and 'printing money') as long as the world continues to value it.

But, yeah, the obvious doom and gloom is the dollar is no longer the new gold and countries start to get away from valuing it. Like China and Russia starting to trade in whatever currency it is, not the USD. The IMF saying the world needs a new currency. Stuff like that.

Ron Paul politicizes at certain times the economic policy, but correct me if I'm wrong....isn't the dollar on a bubble right now only because other countries continue to value it regardless of a current economic policy that doesn't appear to be sustainable? Looking at the year to year budget (and I'll blame the huge debt on Bush) if they continue to run the debt up 2 trillion or so a year to get out of the recession, how long can that last?

12 years ago the debt was what 4 trillion and it's now 15 trillion. Like...that doesn't seem like a plausible path, regardless of what party you support.