At the beginning of this year there was great hand wringing over the sub-prime mess and the havoc it was (and still is) creating. Pundits have called our current financial crisis the biggest crisis since the Great Depression. There was great demand for Congress to “do something”, thus Congress kicked into gear (for example, limits were temporarily raised on FHA loans to make them available to high priced places like California).

But some ideas being floated around Congress are generating intense philosophical debate, namely the concept of “moral hazard”. Moral hazard is an insurance term, used to describe how people possibly may behave under certain circumstances. Read the rest of this article »

Coming back to the office just now, I was listening to the business report KNX1070 has everyday at 1 p.m. They interview expert market analysts on latest stock market trends, and all things business.

Ron Kilgore interviewed a John Augustine from Cincinnati who mentioned the big write down Wachovia Bank announced ($4.4 billion of bad loans), plus their raise of $7 billion of new capital. He stated that the big Wall Street investment banks have already taken their heavy “hits” in write downs and that banks (like Wachovia) will probably also have to do so. The thought is to write off all the bad stuff now and clear the decks as it were.

But now the interesting part. IF we entered a recession in late 2007 (only know with hindsight) and IF we are about half way through this recession (historically), then Wall Street is starting to think about the future and the stock market has already discounted the sub-prime mess, credit crunch, etc. Maybe this summer will see us starting to see light at the end of the tunnel?

Who knows? But once the general media starts these conversations, it tends to be self fulfilling.

But I found it interesting that the media and some analysts are starting to look ahead now and get out of the doom and gloom we’ve been hearing for so long.

Driving through Burger King Friday morning for their cini-minis and coffee, I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard on KNX – Bear Stearns had just collapsed. No way! Just 48 hours earlier, I’d read in the Wall Street Journal that their CEO emphatically claimed they were strong, liquid and able to withstand the credit crisis. Read the rest of this article »