Re: Canada's economy is suddenly the envy of the world

Re: Canada's economy is suddenly the envy of the world: "The banks are stable because, in part, they're more regulated. As the
U.S. and Europe loosened regulations on their financial industries
over the last 15 years, Canada refused to do so. The banks also
aren't
as leveraged as their U.S. or European peers.

There was no mortgage meltdown or subprime crisis in Canada. Banks
don't package mortgages and sell them to the private market, so they
need to be sure their borrowers can pay back the loans.

In Canada's concentrated banking system, five major banks dominate
the
market and regulators know each of the top bank executives
personally."

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Re: The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedown That Bodes Ill for Cities

Re: The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedown That Bodes Ill for Cities: "'t instantly figure out how to
market to minorities or would resist such efforts for fear of
inspiring imitators. Nor has the race discrimination argument for CRA
held up. A September 1999 study by Freddie Mac, for instance,
confirmed what previous Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation studies had found: that African-Americans have
disproportionate levels of credit problems, which explains why they
have a harder time qualifying for mortgage money. As Freddie Mac
found, blacks with incomes of $65,000 to $75,000 a year have on
average worse credit records than whites making under $25,000.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas had it right when it said—in a
paper pointedly entitled "Red Lining or Red Herring?"—"the CRA may not
be needed in today's financial environment to ensure all segments of
our economy enjoy access to credit." True, some households—those with
a history of credit problems, for instance, or those buying homes in
neighborhoods where re-selling them might be difficult—may not qualify
for loans at all, and some may have to pay higher interest rates, in
reflection of higher risk."

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Early 1980s recession - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Early 1980s recession - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "wake of the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis, stagflation began to afflict the economy of the United States. Unemployment had risen from 5.1% in January 1974 to a high of 9.0% in May 1975. Although it had gradually declined to 5.6% by May 1979, unemployment began rising again thereafter. It jumped sharply to 6.9% in April 1980 and to 7.5% in May 1980. A mild recession from January to July 1980 kept unemployment high, but despite economic recovery unemployment remained at historically high levels (about 7.5%) through the end of 1981.[5] Unemployment continued to grow through 1982, reaching 10% nationally, and reached a record peak of 25% in Rockford, Illinois.[6] Inflation, which had averaged 3.2% annually in the post-war period, had more than doubled after the 1973 oil shock to a 7.7% annual rate."

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The Provocateur: Bank Deregulation and the Financial Meltdown

The Provocateur: Bank Deregulation and the Financial Meltdown: "the problem is not merely the regulation itself. I think it is dishonest partisanship of the highest order to proclaim that a company like Merrill Lynch can't also attempt to get into the business of mortgages. I think it is a mistake to call for putting this wall back up. First, if you did, you would create a mass sell off all over Wall Street as financial services firms would need sell of divisions to meet the new law. Second, you would create even more illiquidity at a time when liquidity is the order of the day. By putting the wall back up, the very institutions that you need to get back in the market would be forbidden.

The real villain here is not the deregulation matter itself, but the government's failure to figure out a new oversight framework to deal with the deregulation. Government watchdogs like the SEC, FDIC, Office of Banks and Real Estate, among dozens of government agencies were now responsible for all sorts of new institutions. "

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The Provocateur: Bank Deregulation and the Financial Meltdown

The Provocateur: Bank Deregulation and the Financial Meltdown: "how did this act contribute to turning this mortgage crisis into a financial services crisis? If you were paying attention to my description of the act that answer should be obvious. Now, all sorts of financial institutions were free to take a position in mortgages, sub prime mortgages specifically. Merrill Lynch, for instance, bought up 4 sub prime mortgage companies in 2006. These sorts of mergers would have never been allowed prior to the act. The tragic flaw of this bill is that it exposed financial institutions everywhere to financial vehicles which they had no experience with. It wasn't merely that financial services companies were jumping into the hot market, sub prime, but that they were jumping into this hot market with little prior experience in the market.

Many analysts, in my opinion, mistakenly claim that the Merrill Lynch's of the world were buying mortgages they knew the underlying borrower couldn't pay. I don't think that's true at all."

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Enron castoffs became pipeline empire - Houston Chronicle

Enron castoffs became pipeline empire - Houston Chronicle: "he late Ken Lay build the company into the multifaceted powerhouse called Enron, then left in 1996 when he was not promoted to succeed Lay as CEO.

A year later he joined Bill Morgan, another former Enron executive, and purchased a small pipeline business from Enron for $40 million.

It was not nearly as sexy as trading weather derivatives and broadband data capacity or building power plants overseas - activities that made Enron a stock market darling in the late 1990s.

But it was a solid, conservative business that - at scale - creates enormous cash flow.

Over the years Kinder Morgan grew through dozens of acquisitions and a smaller number of major project expansions.

Like a toll road

"We're not a complicated company to understand. We're just a gigantic toll road," Kinder once told the Chronicle, explaining why the pipeline company's fortunes don't rise and fall with oil and gas prices. "We just get paid a fee to move products, and we don't care what gets moved down the highway.""

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Enron castoffs became pipeline empire - Houston Chronicle

Enron castoffs became pipeline empire - Houston Chronicle: "The loss marked the beginning of the end for the one-time energy giant as it began its spiral to a Dec. 2, 2001, bankruptcy filing, thousands of local layoffs, the collapse of the energy trading business and years of criminal and civil litigation.

On Oct. 16 a decade later, Rich Kinder's company, Kinder Morgan Inc., announced plans to acquire natural gas pipeline giant El Paso Corp. in a $21.1 billion deal that will make Kinder Morgan the fourth-largest energy-related business in the country behind oil giants Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips.

The deal may be the pinnacle of a 15-year journey that saw Kinder take a handful of unwanted pipelines from Enron and build them into a booming energy empire.

It took a combination of patience, conservative budgets and the skillful use of a once-esoteric business structure known as a master limited partnership."

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