Archive for October 23rd, 2008

CWmike writes “Former Reserve Bank chairman Alan Greenspan has long praised technology as a tool to limit risks in financial markets. In 2005, he stated superior risk scoring by high-performance computing made it possible for lenders to extend credit to subprime borrowers. But today Greenspan told Congress that the data fed into financial systems was often a case of garbage in, garbage out. Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, told the committee that bad code led the credit rating agencies to give AAA ratings to mortgage-backed securities that didn’t deserve them. Explaining in his testimony what failed, Cox noted a 2004 decision to rely on the computer models for assessing risks — a decision that essentially outsourced regulatory duties to Wall Street firms themselves.”

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isBandGeek() writes “With shocking disregard to their personal privacy, at least 10 people volunteered to release their entire medical records and DNA sequences in order to get their DNA decoded and analyzed. ‘They include Steven Pinker, the prominent Harvard University psychologist and author, Esther Dyson, a trainee astronaut and Misha Angrist, an assistant professor at Duke University. They have each donated a piece of skin to the project at Harvard University and agreed to have the results posted on the web. The three are among the first 10 volunteers in the Personal Genome Project, a study at Harvard University Medical School aimed at challenging the conventional wisdom that the secrets of our genes are best kept to ourselves. The goal of the project is to speed medical research by dispensing with the elaborate precautions traditionally taken to protect the privacy of human subjects.”

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Congressional investigators repeatedly, verbally pummeled former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan Thursday, for what lawmakers charged was a lack of oversight for a mortgage and housing market run amok - - a lapse they believe encouraged a subprime financing boom and collapse that led to the global financial crisis.

Greenspan, looking subdued but characteristically composed as he testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, conceded that a flaw in his free-market ideology contributed to a “once-in-a-century credit tsunami,” Bloomberg News reported Thursday.

Greenspan: mortgage risk was miss-priced

The flaw, Greenspan said, was the failure by banks and mortgage lenders to properly price risky mortgage assets, including subprime / Alt-A mortgages, The Washington Post reported Thursday. Further, Greenspan said he saw “no choice” but to force the financial firms that package mortgage loans to “retain a meaningful part of the securities they issue” - - thus mandating that if the loans go bad, they’ll lose money, as well.

Further, Greenspan said he was “partially” wrong in his opposition in recent years to the regulation of derivatives, Bloomberg News reported Thursday - - in stark contrast to his Might 2005 speech opposing derivatives regulation.

Economist David H. Wang told BloggingStocks Thursday that the failure to regulate and review lending practices by banks and mortgage lenders was a bipartisan failure.

“Both political celebrations are responsible because neither Democrats nor Republicans, not just Republicans, cared about the quality of mortgages banks approved during the housing boom,” Wang said. “It was like grade inflation in college where the professor gives ‘C’ grades to students whose work only deserves a ‘D.’ No one cared about the quality of the loans as long as they were sold and no longer on their balance sheet. In the future, loan originators must retain partial equity in the loan to make them accountable for mortgage defaults.”

Continue reading Greenspan: I was wrong about banks’ ability to police each other

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McCain Drowning in Obama's Money - ABC News


Christian Science Monitor

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dj writes “NASA has designed a mission to map the boundary of the solar system. The mission is called IBEX (Interstellar Boundary Explorer) and it is ready to launch. The data collected by IBEX will allow scientists to understand the interaction between our Sun and the galaxy for the first time. Understanding this interaction will help us protect future astronauts from the danger of galactic cosmic rays.” The IBEX Launch Blog will go active “about 2 hours before launch scheduled for 1:48 p.m. EDT,” and the Southwest Research Institute will be running webcasts of the event. The IBEX fact sheet provides more details about the mission (PDF). IBEX will reach space via a Pegasus rocket launched from an L-1011 “Stargazer” carrier plane. You can see the launch countdown schedule at NASA’s site.

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Dr. Reddy’s Q2 FY09 Revenue at Rs. 16,151 Million, EBITDA at Rs. 2,746 - MSN MoneyCentral
–   Revenues from Global Generics business at Rs. 11.2 billion ($240 million) in Q2 FY09 as against Rs. 8.0 billion ($172 million) in Q2 FY08. YoY growth of 40% driven by key markets of North America, Russia and Germany. — Revenues from North

UPDATE 1-Market Chatter — Corporate finance press digest - Reuters
LONDON, Oct 23 (Reuters) - The following corporate finance-related stories involving U.S. and European companies were reported by media on Thursday: * Britain’s Financial Services Authority is to pull back from changes that could force life assurers

US announces global finance summit - Deutsche Welle
The White Home has announced that the US will host an emergency global financial summit on November 15. The meeting, to be held near Washington, will bring together leaders of the Group of 20 industrialised countries. White Home Press Secretary

Rising bills ‘biggest finance fear’ - Croydon Guardian
Rising food and energy bills are seen by Britons as a more massive financial threat than recession, a survey showed. Research from the Association of Investment Companies (AIC) found that 52% of the general public believed their greatest financial threat

Falling Exports Help Drive Down Asian Stocks - Washington Post
TOKYO, Oct. 23 — Stocks in Japan and across most of Asia fell again Thursday, as grim government numbers showed the region’s real economy sinking along with global demand for its exports. Near the close of trading, though, markets recovered some of

Belarus Asks IMF for Credit Line as Economy Falters (Update3) - Bloomberg
Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) — Belarus, a former Soviet republic sandwiched between Russia and Poland, requested a loan from the International Monetary Fund, the latest emerging market to seek help in surviving the fallout of the global financial crisis. The

Panel disputes DA’s finding on e-mails - Boston Globe
A Medway town committee is firing back after the Norfolk district attorney’s office reprimanded its members for conducting public business in private and maintaining insufficient meeting minutes. Assistant District Attorney Alexei Tymoczko wrote in a

EU sets up hotline for worried finance ministers - Reuters
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Finance ministers facing market meltdown have a new number to call day or night for help as part of European Union efforts to avoid ill-thought responses that could upset neighboring says and break the bloc’s rules. EU leaders

CHRONOLOGY-South Korea takes steps to stabilise markets - Forbes
Korean Republic (south) - Oct 23 (Reuters) - The following is a chronology of key measures South Korea has taken to confront recent market turmoil: Oct. 23 - Central bank raises the ceiling on low-interest loans to smaller companies for the first

Pakistan takes $5bn IMF bail-out after allies refuse funds - Guardian Unlimited
Pakistan has sought an emergency bail-out from the International Monetary Fund, a humiliating step forced on Islamabad after allies refused to come up with cash to prevent the country going bust. The IMF confirmed yesterday that Pakistan had sought

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Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) could be seen as a nurse taking the pulse of the U.S. economy. When the retailer states that the purchasing habits of U.S. consumers are changing, each executive from just about each industry should pay attention.

Wal-Mart U.S. chief Eduardo Castro-Wright told USA This day that shoppers at Wal-Mart stores are slicing credit card use, among other “disturbing behaviors” the retailer is witnessing among its U.S. consumer base. He stated that the Q2 period in 2008 saw a double-digit decline in credit card use at Wal-Mart compared to the same period in 2007, which saw a double-digit increase in credit card use. Remember - the second quarter ended in June 2008. We all know where the U.S. economy has gone since then.

Castro-Wright added that “credit has been declining dramatically . . . that decline in credit means people have to make choices about how they spend their hard-earned money.” This is true, and Wal-Mart’s marketing tag line — “Save Money. Live Better” — fits right in with Castro-Wright’s words.

Although Wal-Mart’s regular shoppers aren’t making shopping visits as frequently, some consumer segments may be coming in more frequently (but spending less). Regardless, Wal-Mart’s age-old positioning around low retail prices will continue to bolster the company. There is no way — zero chance — that the company won’t continue to benefit as U.S. consumers become so careful about parting with those dollar bills.

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Ant writes “The Telegraph reports that people over 55 who were brought up watching a monochrome TV set are more prone to dream in black and white, even years later. New research suggests that the type of television you watched as a child has a profound effect on the color of your dreams. While almost all under-25s dream in color, many over-55s, all of whom were brought up with B&W sets, often still dream in monochrome. The study, out ot Dundee University, used a small number of subjects under 25 or over 55 and the results advocate that ‘… there could be a critical period in our childhood when watching films has a large impact on the way dreams are formed … [B]efore the advent of black and white TV all the evidence suggests we were dreaming in color.’”

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