The Economist’s Buttonwood Gathering, a conference bringing together global regulators and bankers to discuss and debate new ideas and develop a new set of guidelines moving forward, has just taken place in New York. Michael Panzer, writer of the Financial Armageddon blog and author of “Financial Armageddon: Protect Your Future from Economic Collapse”, was in attendance and has kindly shared some of the more interesting quotes on his blog, as reported below.

Secretary Tim Geithner, United States Department of the Treasury:

“Generally, we did not do enough.” (Referring to the failure to address growing concerns over excessive risk-taking in the period leading up to the financial crisis.) [Editor's note: understatement of the year?]

Stephen Roach, Chairman, Morgan Stanley Asia:

Those who are looking for a “V”-shaped recovery are in for “a rude awakening.”

“The imbalances going into the crisis were large to begin with.

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This post provides links to a number of thought-provoking articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find of interest.

• Mike Shedlock (Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis): Is the stock market a leading indicator?, October 12, 2009. The stock market is at best a coincident indicator, known only well after the fact. Furthermore, even as a coincident indicator, the stock market gives many false signals, making it totally useless for all practical purposes. The theory that the stock market is a reliable leading indicator is a myth easily shattered by simple observation of the facts.

• Caroline Baum (Bloomberg): Treasury bond rally fails asset-bubble test, October 13, 2009. Bubble sightings are proliferating by the day, and with interest rates near zero, it’s not hard to understand why. Easy money leads to excess credit creation, which eventually produces

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Stock markets recorded another strong week as further signs of economic stabilization emerged. The S&P 500 Index worked its way back to above the 1,000 level on Friday, and more upside lies ahead said Abby Joseph Cohen, Goldman Sachs’ market strategist, as she expected the Index to reach the 1,100 mark by year end.

This week’s batch of video clips not only covers the outlook for stock markets, but also discussions about the economy’s transition from recession to recovery and other topical issues. Appearing on camera are Jeffry Sachs, Robert Shiller, Larry Summers, Lakshman Achuthan, Joseph Stiglitz, David Rosenberg and David Hickey.

The selection starts off with two academics - Jeffrey Sachs and Robert Shiller - and concludes with a discussion about the “man-cession” - older white male workers being among the hardest hit by job losses.

Fora.tv: Jeffrey Sachs - global effects of crisis “Jeffrey Sachs, Director

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This post provides links to a number of thought-provoking articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find interesting.

• Richard Bernstein (Financial Times): America is for now still blowing bubbles, July 20, 2009. By preserving capacity to avoid taking pain today, the US is following the approach that led Japan into a lost decade.

• Kenneth Scott and John Taylor (The Wall Street Journal): Why toxic assets are so hard to clean up, July 21, 2009. Despite trillions of dollars of new government programs, one of the original causes of the financial crisis — the toxic assets on bank balance sheets — still persists and remains a serious impediment to economic recovery. Why are these toxic assets so difficult to deal with? We believe their sheer complexity is the core problem and that only increased transparency will

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The Obama Administration is expected to release a comprehensive financial regulation reform plan this week, the summary of which was revealed in an op-ed piece by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Chairman Lawrence Summers, published in The Washington Post this morning.

The administration has focused on five key areas:

Raising capital and liquidity requirements for all institutions, consolidated supervision by the Federal Reserve for "too big to fail" firms and establishing a council of regulators for better coordination Robust reporting requirements on the issuers of asset-backed securities, reducing reliance on credit-rating agencies, harmonizing the regulation of futures and securities, and strong oversight of "over-the-counter" derivatives Stronger framework for consumer and investor protection Resolution mechanism for the orderly resolution of "too big to fail" financial holding companies Improving regulation and supervision around the worldWe totally agree that the regulation of the financial system urgently needs to be ...

Or, how ignorance sometimes invalidates a critique.

I am always amazed at how often people jump to the most paranoid interpretations. One case in point is this article by Evan Newmark entitled Mean Street: Obama's Big Fat Fibbing Budget on WSJ's Deal Journal:

Is the White House lying to the American public about the economy? Or, if not outright lying, is it being awfully stingy with the truth?

You have to wonder.

After all, the Obama economic team is full of very smart people. And they have to see the same things that you and I see.

They see April's lousy retail numbers and record foreclosure rate. They see unemployment at 8.9%, state tax revenues facing double-digit declines, and a 14% fall in home prices last quarter.

So how can National Economic Council boss Larry Summers, Council of Economic Advisers chief Christina Romer or Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner still believe in

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If the pattern of the ’30s holds, we won’t see the stock market bottom until 2011.

When we left three weeks ago, it was cold and rainy in Europe…and the world was in the midst of a terrible financial crisis.

But now we’re back…and everything has changed. The trees along the Boulevard de la Villette have leafed out. Flowers are in bloom. People are sitting at sidewalk cafes. Life seems to be returning to normal. As expected, the financial world seems to be walking with a lighter step. It feels the sun on its face…and guesses that the long winter is behind it.

“Encouraging signs” are everywhere, says Le Monde. In fact, all the news reports say they see them. Consumer sentiment isn’t as bad as it used to be. Stocks are rising. The banks are back in business.

“How to profit from the recovery,” says one headline.

“Stocks point to end of downturn,”

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Highlights include Citigroup, Inc. (C), Regions Financial Corp. (RF), SunTrust Banks, Inc. (STI), KeyCorp (KEY) and Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB). On Friday, the Federal Reserve released details about the methodology of the "stress tests" conducted by it on 19 banks with assets exceeding $100 billion. The results were shared with the respective banks and the banks have this week to dispute the Regulator's assessment of the losses and capital requirements. Final capital assessment will be disclosed on May 4, 2009. As we already stated in our recent blog, there was very little new information in the White Paper released by the Federal Reserve. Further, the Paper failed to provide some critical details on loss projections and level of capital reserves that the banks will be required to maintain. In

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By Michael McKee and Matthew Benjamin

April 17 (Bloomberg) — The Obama administration’s bank- rescue efforts will probably fail because the programs have been designed to help Wall Street rather than create a viable financial system, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said.

“All the ingredients they have so far are weak, and there are several missing ingredients,” Stiglitz said in an interview yesterday. The people who designed the plans are “either in the pocket of the banks or they’re incompetent.”

The Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, isn’t large enough to recapitalize the banking system, and the administration hasn’t been direct in addressing that shortfall, he said. Stiglitz said there are conflicts of interest at the White House because some of Obama’s advisers have close ties to Wall Street.

“We don’t have enough money, they don’t want to go back to Congress, and they don’t want to do it in an open way and

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New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (hat tip: LA Times) asserted that on Friday insurance company AIG, recipient so far of perhaps $170 billion in bailout assistance, distributed over $160 million in "retention payments to members of its Financial Products Subsidiary." These payments apparently included "retention" payments of over $1 million each to eleven individuals who are no longer working at AIG.

One of the reasons this is so outrageous is that the promise of such bonuses was in fact one of the very factors that caused our current problems, creating incentives for managers of AIG to get out of solid insurance underwriting and into hedge fund gambling. If anyone had supposed that AIG had "learned its lesson", this report seemed to dash that hope against the wall like a plate of china.

Some may argue that AIG's hands were tied by

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