http://interfluidity.powerblogs.com/ en-us 2008-05-13T17:05+00:00 http://interfluidity.powerblogs.com/posts/1210672198.shtml Mark Thoma offers a very thoughtful rejoinder to my post on whether the Fed should be given authority to pay interest on deposits. Mark's comments range from specific,... Steve Randy Waldman 2008-05-13T17:05+00:00 http://interfluidity.powerblogs.com/posts/1210513606.shtml Last week, the Fed decided to ask Congress for the right to pay interest on bank reserves. (Hat tip Barry Ritholtz, see also William Polley, Mark Thoma,... Steve Randy Waldman 2008-05-11T23:05+00:00 http://interfluidity.powerblogs.com/posts/1210271081.shtml The graph below plots the US Federal Reserve's stock of "uncommitted Treasury securities", defined as Treasury securities held outright less securities lent to dealers. The graph starts in December 2007, just... Steve Randy Waldman 2008-05-08T18:05+00:00 http://interfluidity.powerblogs.com/posts/1210118256.shtml In my previous post, I suggested that "depth-weighted spreads" ought to serve as a measure of the uncertainty surrounding a asset's future cash-flows. Felix Salmon quite correctly points out... Steve Randy Waldman 2008-05-07T05:05+00:00 http://interfluidity.powerblogs.com/posts/1209978923.shtml Yves Smith packs a powerful insight into an unassuming sentence:... Steve Randy Waldman 2008-05-05T09:05+00:00 http://interfluidity.powerblogs.com/posts/1209970779.shtml This wasn't the first time, and I can assure you it won't be the last of my sudden disappearances. I'd like you all to think that I am occasionally called off... Steve Randy Waldman 2008-05-05T06:05+00:00 http://interfluidity.powerblogs.com/posts/1207753042.shtml Yves Smith points us to a couple of pieces discussing the Fed's "balance sheet constraint", the notion that the central bank may run out of treasury securities to exchange,... Steve Randy Waldman 2008-04-09T17:04+00:00 http://interfluidity.powerblogs.com/posts/1207473165.shtml I really thought that Michael Shedlock was overstating the case:... Steve Randy Waldman 2008-04-06T20:04+00:00 http://interfluidity.powerblogs.com/posts/1207251546.shtml It's official. The LLC that the Fed and J.P. Morgan recently formed to manage $30B Bear Stearns assets has taken over a portfolio of derivative positions along with those assets. Those... Steve Randy Waldman 2008-04-03T23:04+00:00 http://interfluidity.powerblogs.com/posts/1207025118.shtml Ambrose Evans-Pritchard published a column this morning suggesting that the U.S may adopt the so called "Nordic model" of nationalizing insolvent banks. The piece has drawn a lot of blogospheric... Steve Randy Waldman 2008-04-01T04:04+00:00 http://interfluidity.powerblogs.com/posts/1206944702.shtml I know it's mostly bull, the hippie management bromide that "in Chinese, the word for crisis is danger plus opportunity!" I don't care. We're gonna go with it here. I see... Steve Randy Waldman 2008-03-31T06:03+00:00 http://interfluidity.powerblogs.com/posts/1206422478.shtml MacroMan has a nice find, in a post aptly entitled Timmy Geithner, SIV Manager!?. He points us to details of the "loan" being arranged by the Fed to... Steve Randy Waldman 2008-03-25T05:03+00:00 http://interfluidity.powerblogs.com/posts/1206075306.shtml Treasury securities are trading at bizarrely low yields, and Yves Smith offers an intriguing thought:... Steve Randy Waldman 2008-03-21T04:03+00:00 http://interfluidity.powerblogs.com/posts/1205997488.shtml David Leonhardt notes that it's pretty hard to explain what's going on in the financial world these days (ht Felix). Here's how I'd tell the tale to a child:... Steve Randy Waldman 2008-03-20T07:03+00:00 http://interfluidity.powerblogs.com/posts/1205901897.shtml jck at Alea, the first to hint that Bear Stearns might be the victim of a bear raid, now reports that the SEC is on the case, investigating whether... Steve Randy Waldman 2008-03-19T04:03+00:00