Yes, Virginia, seeking higher dollar returns to offset the dollar’s depreciation does mean taking on more risk.  And Steve Schwarzman wasn’t going to underprice his IPO just because China underpriced…

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism is right – If Gillian Tett of the FT disappeared, we would be in a whole lot of trouble. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of central bankers rely on her reporting to…

The process that turned subprime mortgages into triple AAA rated securities is, by now, pretty well known.   Rich Bookstaber (his blog is here) describes the process nicely.Here's the recipe for a CD…

Or perhaps – with a bit of reverse financial engineering – into “apples, pears, strawberries and all the rest.” Martin Wolf is the latest observer to note that the US has created a lot of financial l…

Combine two data points The August fall in Treasury holdings in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s custodial accounts (the data is released weekly here); andThe very modest increase in China’s re…