ShareIn my view, there is little chance the Germans are going to allow the EU to ride to the rescue of the Greeks. All of the bailout chatter does not really consider the domestic political constraints in Germany.
First, a bit of quick background.  Germany was traumatized by two world wars and an intervening period [...]

ShareOne of the larger problems in the unfolding meltdown in Greece is the fraud apparently perpetrated by past Greek governments to conceal their true levels of debt. This is having a very adverse effect on Greek credit spreads to (German) Bunds. 
10-year Greek bonds are trading at 6.67%, while German 10-years are at 3.14%, a [...]

ShareThis is a great graphic showing the money and asset flows in the AIG bailout that makes it far easier to understand why people are calling the AIG bailout a backdoor bailout of AIG’s counterparties.  Take a look.

Source
CHART OF THE DAY: How The AIG Bailout REALLY Worked – Clusterstock

ShareI just received this document from an interested reader. It is a request by Congressman Darrell Issa for a subpoena to be issued in order to facilitate the investigation surrounding the AIG cover-up. Apparently, evidence has now surfaced about Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke’s role in the AIG saga that is germane to this issue. [...]

ShareIn November 2008, the SEC approved a request by American International Group (AIG) to keep secret until November 2018 documents which reveal securities behind the brewing scandal over its bailout by the Federal Reserve.
A copy of the SEC’s order revealed that the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance ordered this "excluded information" not to be [...]

ShareEdward Hugh here. This is a post which was originally published at A Fistful of Euros.
Sometimes it surprises me what some people consider to be news. Tony Barber points out today in the FT Brussels blog that the EU has the power to mount bailouts of any member country under “exceptional circumstances”. As Tony rightly [...]

ShareThis comes from Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review:
Whatever Tim Geithner’s New York Fed was trying to hide in the AIG backdoor bailout was so volatile it was deemed worthy of national-security-like classification, and the Fed reacted to media FOIA requests for information by withholding more information.
Reuters, gets the scoop on emails that detail [...]

ShareI picked up this Robert Reich quote from Politico’s Open Mic section, which echoes the sentiments expressed by a Massachusetts voter in my recent post “President Obama, are you listening?”:
A third political party is emerging in America. Call it the I’m-Mad-As-Hell party.
It’s a mistake to see the Mad-As-Hell party as just a right-wing phenomenon [...]

ShareThis is a post which I originally published at New Deal 2.0.
Ed mentioned yesterday in his post Credit crises, market equilibrium, economic policy and fiat currencies that both the neoclassicals and the Obama Administration believe the financial crisis has been some sort of temporary liquidity crisis; fix the financial plumbing and it’s business as usual [...]

ShareReuters reporter Matthew Goldstein has this breaking story:
It could take until November 2018 to get the full story behind the U.S. bailout of insurance giant American International Group because of an action taken last year by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In May, the SEC approved a request by AIG to keep secret an exhibit to [...]