» Posted by Martin Weil on May 29, 2009

Then there are the derivatives. There, Clinton pleads guilty. Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, opposed regulation of derivatives as they came to the fore in the 1990s, and Clinton agreed. "They argued that nobody's going to buy these derivatives, we'll do it without transparency, they'll get the information they need," he recalled. "And it turned out to be just wrong; it just wasn't true." He said others share blame, including credit-rating agencies that underestimated the risk. But he accepts responsibility as well. "I very much wish now that I had demanded that we put derivatives under the jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission...That I think is a legitimate criticism of what we didn't do." He added: "If you ask me to write the indictment, I'd say: 'I wish Bill Clinton had said more about derivatives. The Republicans probably would have stopped him from doing it, but at least he should have sounded the alarm bell.'"

From the Sunday NY Times.

I have said from the outset that the CFMA (Commodities Futures Modernization Act), product of Senator Phil Gramm and the Enron lobbyists, and signed into law by Bill Clinton, were, along with the gross negligence of the ratings agencies, the chief enablers of this entire credit crisis.

GOP, anyone like to step up to the plate for your share in this?

» Posted by Martin Weil on May 21, 2009

As only SNL can. (The answers to the tests are priceless. Note that you have to wait through a 30 second random commercial to view)

» Posted by Martin Weil on May 19, 2009

Wherein UCLA social policy prof Mark Kleiman makes some sense:

Once the measures fail, the only hope is that Barack Obama will come in and play the role of the IMF: "Here's a bunch of Federal dollars you can have if and only if you change the two-thirds rule and eliminate the Prop. 13 rip-off for business." It might even work.

» Posted by Martin Weil on May 19, 2009

In September 2007, I made my first loan through Kiva, a nonprofit that matches micro-lenders in the developed world with entrepreneurial borrowers in the developing. I remember being slightly nervous and disoriented when I clicked on the $100 I was lending Dr. Sykes Ally, a pharmacist in Tanzania. Dr. Ally repaid on time. And I have been making loans ever since.

Since 2007, I have made 17 loans of different sizes through Kiva, 11 of which have been fully repaid, 5 of which are in repayment, and 1 which defaulted. The defaulter did manage to repay 40% of the original principal.

Kiva says that my portfolio default rate is 3.74%, more than the average user's 1.76% (so much for my acumen as a micro-banker). However, I am fairly certain I am still ahead of Countrywide's mortgage default rate by a comfortable margin. My personal portfolio and lender page is at Kiva here. I recommend the experience and Kiva highly.

» Posted by Martin Weil on May 12, 2009

Debt levels at the start of the last great bull market in 1982 vs. today.