solvency

The Treasury announced they will begin to inject capital (money) into banks, under terms created under the bailout bill.  This article will try to walk through, in English, what this all means. (…)

Lost in the bailout mess comes this bit of interesting news for the automakers. (…)

In one of my most recent posts I discussed the "ready to explode" product issued by brokerage firms called "auction rate preferred securities."
Well, that didn't take long. (…)

"Mr. Valentine has set the price!"
Or, in this case Mr. Bernanke sets the price. (…)

You may not have heard of the term "auction rate preferred securities."
Yet.
If you have not, you probably will soon. (…)

Let's talk about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
How could these two companies be "OK" a week ago — and now this week they seem on the brink of disaster? (…)

All these firms hold the same investments.
There is STILL considerable risk in the group.
Why did this happen to just Bear Stearns? (…)

The news surrounding Bear Stearns on Friday morning was not good! There are several important elements to this story. (…)

I've labeled this “the yikes spiral” because typically this happens when certain markets are in free fall. (…)

I'm not an economist (thank goodness!), but it's just my opinion that episodes like what happened in 1998 (and even in 2001 and in 2002) — when the Fed stepped in and changed interest rates — were more situations of market "liquidity" issues. (…)