November 29, 2008

The Investors Who Can’t Come in From the Cold

By: Gretchen Morgenson, New York Times

LIFE is unfair, as the saying goes, but for investors still stuck in auction-rate securities, the inequities keep on coming. Auction-rate securities, you may recall, are preferred shares or debt instruments with rates that reset...

November 18, 2008

A Rescue Plan Without Taxpayer Money

By: New York Times

HELLO, taxpayers. Worried about the fate of the $350 billion that the government has asked you to fork over so far to help rescue financiers from themselves?

November 16, 2008

A Rescue Plan Without Taxpayer Money

By: Gretchen Morgenson, New York Times

HELLO, taxpayers. Worried about the fate of the $350 billion that the government has asked you to fork over so far to help rescue financiers from themselves? Last week, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. gave you every...

November 13, 2008

Open the Door and Turn on the Lights

By: Gretchen Morgenson, New York Times

OPTIMISM surrounding last week’s election and the promise of a new crew in Washington ran smack into the reality that we are still mired in a wicked financial mess. The Labor Department reported on Friday that the unemployment...

November 4, 2008

They’re Shocked, Shocked, About the Mess

By: Gretchen Morgenson, New Uork Times

MY hypocrisy meter konked out last week. It started acting up on Wednesday, spinning wildly as executives from the nation’s leading credit-rating agencies testified before Congress about their nonroles in the credit crisis....

November 4, 2008

Was There a Loan It Didn’t Like?

By: GRETCHEN MORGENSON, New York Times

AS a senior mortgage underwriter, Keysha Cooper was proud of her ability to spot fraud and other problems in a loan application. A decade of vetting mortgage documents had taught her plenty, she says.

October 22, 2008

We’ll Rescue You on Four Conditions

By: NY TIMES - GRETCHEN MORGENSON

YOU may have been wondering what it takes to get overpaid executives to rein in excessive compensation. Well, now you know. It takes a historic financial market conflagration and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in...

October 13, 2008

Regulators Face Deficit Of Trust; Fair Game

By: The International Herald Tribune
Gretchen Morgenson - The New York Times Media Group

Stock market investors, even more than the average Jane, hate unpleasant surprises. Unfortunately, as last week showed, this bailout business is chock full of them.

Consider the backstop recently provided to American...

October 7, 2008

Countrywide Agrees To Largest Home Loan Aid Plan; DEEPENING FINANCIAL CRISIS

By: The International Herald Tribune
Gretchen Morgenson - The New York Times Media Group

Countrywide Financial has agreed to the largest program ever to modify home loans, as part of a settlement with officials in 11 states, just days after the U.S. government adopted a giant financial rescue package without any...

September 29, 2008

Behind Crisis At AIG, A Fragile Web Of Risks

By: The International Herald Tribune
Gretchen Morgenson - The New York Times Media Group

Two weeks ago, the most powerful U.S. regulators and bankers huddled in the Lower Manhattan fortress that is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, desperately trying to stave off disaster.

As the group, led by Treasury Secretary...