As we work through the worst economic upset in decades, remember the differences between the “real economy” and the “money economy.” The two are linked but are not the same. The crucial question now is how much dramatic problems in…
Your turn, healthy regional investment banks
The big investment banks are dead. Investment banking has a bright future. This is not contradictory. When Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley fled into the protection of commercial bank charters last month, large U.S. stand-alone investment banks became history. The…
In desperate times, Fed takes desperate measures
The Federal Reserve’s announcement Tuesday that it would buy as much as $200 billion in commercial paper was a remarkable but poorly understood action in a week of extraordinary events. Like other Fed and Treasury actions in recent weeks, it…
How bad loans translated to big problems
With the Treasury and the Federal Reserve desperately throwing in unprecedented sums to stem the ongoing financial crisis, ordinary people have a right to ask, ‘How did these big financial institutions lose all this money? Where did it go?’ The…