LOS ANGELES - IndyMac Bank’s assets were seized by federal regulators on Friday after the mortgage lender succumbed to the pressures of tighter credit, tumbling home prices and rising foreclosures. The bank is the largest regulated thrift to fail and the second largest financial institution to close in U.S. history, regulators said. The Office of Thrift Supervision said it transferred IndyMac’s operations to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation because it did not think the lender could meet its depositors’ demands. IndyMac customers with funds in the bank were limited to taking out money via automated teller machines over the weekend, debit card transactions or checks, regulators said. Other bank services, such as online banking and phone banking were scheduled to be made available on Monday. “This institution failed today due to a liquidity crisis,” OTS Director John Reich said. The lender’s failure came the same day that financial markets plunged when investors tried ...

Article Source Bruce Mizrach prepared some very thoughtful questions for an interview at the Society for Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics Symposium in San Francisco two months ago. We discussed a broad range of topics, including my background, Markov-switching models, the Fed, oil prices, and why I blog. Below are links you can follow to see the answers to particular questions. The background for the interview and details of the questions can be found in a nice write-up by Bruce Mizrach that appeared in the latest issue of Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics. Here are abbreviated versions of the questions with links to the relevant video. Thanks much to Bruce for preparing this and helping make it accessible to all our readers. 1. Why economics? [WMV] [Real Media] 2. Economics training [WMV] [Real Media 3. San Diego [WMV] [Real Media] 4. Markov switching ...