FOMC announced today it will leave the benchmark interest rate as it is …between 0 - 0.25 percent. However they mention a disturbing willingness to “support” the Treasury market through direct purchases of long-term securities. Boy, I bet Pimco’s Bill Gross, loved hearing that! FOMC: No Change on Benchmark Interest Rate The FOMC after deciding [...]

John Thain, former CEO of Merrill Lynch, who was “asked to resign” by BofA’s CEO, Ken Lewis last week for what I now want to call “serious greedy scumbag behavior”. Thain is believed to have booked trading losses right after the announcement of the BofA takeover, authorized huge end of year performance bonuses, and redecorated [...]

The U.S. Treasury Department announced today about $386 million of the bailout money went to 23 banks across the nation as part of its Capital Purchase Program (CPP). This press release announcing the funding of these little local banks is more of a PR ploy if you ask me. They want us all to think [...]

The Senate confirmed Timothy Geithner for US Treasury Secretary in a bumpy but virtual “rubber stamp” confirmation. Mr. Geithner had unpaid income taxes from his time at the IMF and some other irregularities with a former nanny to overcome. With the Obama warmth radiating over Mr. Geithner, these otherwise serious oversights, proved to be no [...]

President Obama kicked Senator Durbin’s bankruptcy bill with it’s “cramdown” forced loan modification provisions to help foreclosure victims, off his economic stimulus package. Friday, in a meeting the two decided Durbin’s bill could derail the passage of the more important recovery bill. Cramdown Bill Ousted The part of the bankruptcy bill President Obama was afraid [...]

Here is this week’s list of banks getting TARP funds from the US Treasury Department as part of the banking bailout legislation passed late Summer of 2008. Banks Getting TARP Funds Week Ending 1/24/2009 The Treasury sends me emails of all sorts and I thought this would be one I’d simply repost each time I [...]

U.S. Senator Jim Bunning, R-Ky., today spoke the truth about Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner in Senate confirmation hearings that it seems are really more a formality when it comes to Mr. Geithner. Brave Senator Jim Bunning Pulls No Punches At today’s confirmation hearings before the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Bunning said Geithner’s tax problems were [...]

Loan modification companies are flooding my email these days attempting to sell me “loan mods” as easily and profitable as the old subrpime mortgage pitches. I can remember all those emails of all those subprime lenders pushing every loan officer and mortgage broker in the country to sell subprime loans to anyone who could fog [...]

There is the idea of an “aggregator bank” as the “new” solution to the enduring housing and banking crisis. Sheila Blair attempted to explain the meaning and function of an aggregator in the Wall Street Journal. Aggregator Bank Explained On WSJ.com, Sheila Blair, the FDIC Chairman, is attempting to explain the workings of a so-called [...]