Found a couple of things I wanted to pass along. (Both from Bloomberg)br /br /br /1) a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20603037amp;sid=a.pZggcuVEp8"Chinese Stocks to Recover From Plunge, Fisher Says/a.br /br /blockquoteChinese a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=SHCOMP%3AIND" onmouseover="return escape( popwQuoteShort( this, 'SHCOMP:IND' ))"stocks/a will recover from their steepest drop since November and end the year higher as speculation that the government will limit bank loans is unfounded, billionaire investor a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Kenneth+Fisheramp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Kenneth Fisher/a said. pThe nation’s economy is “gangbusters compared to the rest of the world, why would they try to kick that?” said Fisher, who has about $900 million invested in Chinese shares among the $28 billion he manages as chief executive officer of Fisher Investments Inc. in Woodside, California. “They have zero incentive” to curb lending, he said. /p/blockquotepbr //ppZero incentive? How about the incentive to avert a massive ...

I found this by chance on CNN. It’s just plain scary to me. What do you think? Adam Troubled ASSET RELIEF PROGRAM Financial rescue plan aimed at restoring liquidity to the financial markets Program Committed Invested Description American International Group * See complete AIG bailout below $70 billion $69.8 billion $40 billion in preferred shares were converted to so-called non-cumulative shares that more closely resemble common stock. Treasury later offered another $30 billion in preferred shares for up to 5 years, in return for a 10% dividend. AIG: Where your money is going Asset Guarantee Program Citigroup Bank of America $12.5 billion $5 billion $7.5 billion $5 billion $5 billion $0 Funds set aside to backstop potential losses to government from Citigroup and Bank of America loans. Auto Supplier Support Program GM Supplier Receivables Chrysler Receivables $5 billion $3.5 billion $1.5 billion $5 billion $3.5 billion $1.5 billion Program to help stabilize ...

* Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM) reported a first-quarter loss of $23.2 billion, or $4.09 per share, worse than a year ago. The mortgage finance company also said it needs an additional $19 billion infusion from the U.S. Treasury

* After the close Thursday, AIG (NYSE:AIG) reported a quarterly loss of 97 cents a share, worse than consensus projections of a loss of 6 cents a share but better than $1.41 a year ago

* Satellite provider Dish Network (NASDAQ:DISH) reported better-than-expected first quarter earnigs 70 cents per share, beating estimates of 56 cents versus 57 cents a year ago, on inline revenues of $2.91 billion, up 2.1% year-over-year. The company also said it lost 94,000 subscribers during the quarter

* Listed among the nine US banks which do not need additional capital, BB&T (NYSE:BBT) announced its plans to sell $1.5 billion common shares, in its efforts to help repay TARP funds. The

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Hate thy neighbor? Giveth his children money; that will fix them all. Few things are as costly as free money.

When the Spanish Galleons came back from the New World with cargoes of gold and silver coins, the Spaniards thought they’d hit the jackpot. All of a sudden, Iberia had plenty of money. Historians report that the Spanish neglected their fields and their manufactures; now they had easy money to spend. Prices rose quickly. Then, when the treasure ships stopped coming, the Spanish were broke. Spain – and Portugal too – went into a decline that lasted four centuries.

In the late 1990s, America got in the habit of getting shiploads of stuff from Asia – and paying for it only with pieces of green paper. Pretty soon, Americans too neglected their own factories – though not their fields. Let the Asians sweat, they said. We’ll think!

Not much serious thinking has taken

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Once upon a time, generous-minded social engineering resulted in the Community Reinvestment Act, which forced banks to lend to disadvantaged borrowers who otherwise couldn’t get mortgages to buy homes.

But because these potential borrowers were financially disadvantaged, they also represented a bigger credit risk. Banks didn’t like being told to make mortgages to high-risk borrowers because they wouldn’t be able sell these loans off to anyone else.

Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) were mandated to insure these higher-risk loans so that with a de facto government guarantee these “subprime” mortgages could be repackaged and sold, removing them from the inventory of the originating bank.

Thus the seeds of the subprime mortgage debacle were planted.

A series of devastating events - the bursting of the tech stock bubble in 2000, the 2001 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, and the war on Iraq and the spike

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A Santa Rally for the currencies?…  Waiting for the FOMC…  AUD and NZD rally…  China to try and keep growth above 8%… And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Good day…It was actually a Great day for the currencies yesterday as the dollar index dropped another full point. The Euro moved past $1.35 and then blew through $1.36 to end the day over $1.37. And the Euro wasn’t even the best performer, as the New Zealand dollar rallied over 2.1% vs. the US$ to take the title of best performing currency against the greenback. The South African rand was the only currency turning in a negative performance yesterday with the other commodity driven currencies of Norway and Brazil just barely holding their ground vs. the US$.

The

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With the economy in a tailspin, the U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers will today (Tuesday) almost certainly cut the benchmark Federal Funds rate from its current 1.0% to 0.5%.

So the question no longer seems to be whether the Fed will ease, but whether the move will make any difference.

The Fed has been hamstrung by a credit-market double-whammy: borrowers who are in limbo due to fears of soaring unemployment, and banks that have turned off the lending spigot. Even so, a U.S. economy facing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression demands the central bank take decisive action.

That has led to a strong undercurrent of opinion among analysts that the Fed will pursue other measures to spark a moribund U.S. economy.

“We look for the accompanying statement to highlight that the main nexus of policy in the coming months will be quantitative easing operations,

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The U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury Department announced yesterday (Tuesday) $800 billion worth of stimulus measures to rev up three primary engines of the U.S. economy – homebuyers, consumers and small businesses.

This newest economic infusion follows a $700 billion banking system bailout package that was unveiled in late October. At least half the cash has been injected directly into U.S. banks and insurance companies, firing off a flurry of takeover deals – with more expected to come. And it precedes an anticipated package being designed by the new economic team that’s been assembled by President-elect Barack Obama. That package is still in its formative stages, but estimates of its ultimate size range from $500 million to $1.2 billion.

The $800 billion package unveiled by the Fed and Treasury Department yesterday consisted of several parts.

In one statement, the Fed announced it would purchase as much as $500

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DHL Withdraws From U.S.; China ‘Stimulates’ Railway and Steel Industries; YouTube to Show Full-Length Flicks; McDonald’s October Sales Solid; DB Analysts Says GM Stock Worthless; Fannie Mae to Tap Fed Fund; Starbucks Profit Down 97%; U.S. Cotton Production Declines by a Third

U.S. job cuts and slashed stateside budgets have forced express mailer DHL Express, a subsidiary of Deutsche Post AG, from the U.S. Market, Reuters reported. With the move, Deutsche Post AG cut 9,500 jobs (on top of 5,400 from earlier this year). It was also an early Christmas present for rivals United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) and FedEx Corp. (FDX), who’ve also ...

There's a lot of commentary -- more comprehensive and up to date than I can provide -- on the crisis and the attempts to resolve the logjam in the financial markets.[0], [1] But I stilll have a couple of thoughts about the causes, and the implications, of the process that has resulted in so much turmoil this week.

First, what is the source of the crisis? Is it as is asserted here in this statement from John McCain today?

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There are certainly plenty of places to point fingers, and it may be hard to pinpoint the original event that set it all in motion. But let me give you an educated guess. The financial crisis we're living through today started with the corruption and manipulation of our home mortgage system. At the center of the problem were the lobbyists, politicians, and bureaucrats who succeeded in persuading Congress and the

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