Comments on: US Treasury: Proud New Owner of America’s Banks

By: Michael Michael

Michael Michael — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:25:36 +0000

I think you just identified the title of your autobiography with the phrase “An orderly deleveraging”, sunshine. Follow it up with a colon and the words “My journey from eyeliner to fatherhood”, and you’ve got yourself a bestselling badboy.

By: stubbornmule

stubbornmule — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:51:24 +0000

I should add that if you have a lazy hour free, this episode of This American Life (TAL) is worth a listen (talks about freezing of money markets, the role of credit default swaps in the crisis and even touches on this equity injection issue at the end). Thanks to Michael Michael for the pointer to TAL.

By: stubbornmule

stubbornmule — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:48:51 +0000

@Duncan: thanks, hadn't seen that one (despite being a regular reader of Krugman's blog). After dithering in the face of the failure of Northern Rock, Brown certainly seems to have developed some intestinal fortitude of late. I imagine that the equity injection approach would have seemed obvious to many in the US a while back, but the banks would not have liked it (dilution of returns for equity holders, loss of control, etc), so the banking lobbyists would have been working very hard. Britain's actions would certainly have helped provide a counterbalance, so Krugman is probably right that their actions helped to get the US over the line.

By: Duncan

Duncan — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 04:29:33 +0000

Interesting commentary from Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman giving Gordon Brown credit for this :

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/opinion/13krugman.html

By: Kwoff.com

Kwoff.com — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 01:18:01 +0000

US Treasury: Proud New Owner of America’s Banks | A Stubborn Mule’s Perspective…

US Treasury investing directly into US banks…