by Edward Hugh: Barcelona According to a once famous statement by the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, a week is often a long time in politics. But when it comes to financial market crises we seem to follow a pattern more reminiscent of a line from the Dinah Washington version of an old María Méndez Grever song: “What a difference a day made”. The day in this case was last Wednesday, at least for those of us here in Spain, since it was on Wednesday that the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded Spanish Sovereign debt to AA from AA+

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What A Difference A Day Made!

Cinco de May Community Celebration Wednesday, May 5th, 2010, Centennial Plaza, Downtown Midland, 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m

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May 5th: Cinco de Mayo Celebration, Hispanic Cultural Center of Midland

The Republican meme on the gulf oil spill is that it is ” Obama’s Katrina “. But as Plaintiff’s lawyer Michael Papantonio – suing BP concerning on behalf of fisherman and local businesses hurt by the oil spill – just revealed, Dick Cheney is partly largely responsible. As summarized by Eric at Daily Kos : Mike Papantonio [said] An ‘acoustic switch’ would have prevented this catastrophe – it’s a failsafe that shuts the flow of oil off at the source – they cost only about half a million dollars each, and are required in off-shore drilling platforms in most of the world…except for the United States.

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Gulf Oil Spill is Cheney’s Fault as Much as Obama’s

Partisan GOP hacks say the financial crisis was caused by too much regulation, and government interference in the markets. But Glass-Steagall was repealed, derivatives were left unregulated, and the regulators were watching porn instead of preventing fraud

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Cut the Partisan Crap … BOTH the Private Sector AND the Government are to Blame for the Financial Crisis

By Jeremy Eichler – Boston Globe On a recent morning in this chaotic, traffic-choked city, a large room is bursting with a children’s orchestra. Gustavo Dudamel has dropped by to observe and offer words of encouragement. But the children have other ideas

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Conducting a Movement: Charismatic Venezuelan Leads Classical Revolution

TEDTalks The Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra contains the best high school musicians from Venezuela’s life-changing music program, El Sistema. Led here by Gustavo Dudamel, they play Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, 2nd movement, and Arturo Márquez’ Danzón No.

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Incredible Venezuelan High School Musicians Led by Gustavo Dudamel

By request, the following graph is an update to: The Investment Slump in Q2 2009 The following graph shows the rolling 4 quarter contribution to GDP from residential investment, equipment and software, and nonresidential structures. This is important to follow because residential investment tends to lead the economy, equipment and software is generally coincident, and nonresidential structure investment trails the economy. For the following graph, red is residential, green is equipment and software, and blue is investment in non-residential structures.

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Investment Contributions to GDP: Leading and Lagging Sectors

Using your money to limit your choices Here’s a good editorial from Andrea Mrozek in the Ottawa Citizen, explaining how the bloated Liberal government that I blogged about recently is using a “public option” to stamp out stay-at-home moms and private child care options.

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MUST-READ: How government-run day care impacts families

As of 2007, the bottom 50% of the U.S. population owned only one-half of one percent of all stocks, bonds and mutual funds in the U.S.

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Should a Stock Market Decline Stop the Goldman Prosecutions?

Note: Freddie Mac reported the serious delinquency rate decreased in March from February, but that is only after the previous months were revised higher. Also there might be some distortion from the modification program – loans in trial mods were considered delinquent until the modifications were made permanent

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Freddie Mac: 90+ Day Delinquency Rate at 4.13% in March

Cadillac Fairview will have some work to do leasing up the TD Centre in heart of the financial core. Due to some big chunks of space coming available at the end of the year they have created a new website to help advertise the buildings

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Featured Building – 77 King Street West – TD Centre

One hundred twenty Morgan Stanley offices are expected to be closed throughout the United States, according to a recent article by Michael J. Moore in Bloomberg.com, “Morgan Stanley Smith Barney to Close 120 ‘Overlap’ U.S.

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Morgan Stanley Smith Barney Plans to Close 120 Offices – Impact on Current Employees Unknown

The chemical industry is a well-known leading indicator for the world economy. Yet 18 months after the financial crisis began, the blog’s review of quarterly company results reveals few signs of optimism that a sustained upturn is underway. Q1 has certainly seen the forecast seasonal boost

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Chemical companies see upturn, but not yet a sustained recovery ahead

From Nick Timiraos at the WSJ: U.S. Role in Mortgage Market Grows Even Larger Government-related entities backed 96.5% of all home loans during the first quarter, up from 90% in 2009, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. The following graph from San Francisco Fed Senior Economist John Krainer puts this in perspective (from Oct 2009): Recent Developments in Mortgage Finance As the U.S

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96.5% of Mortgages Backed by Government entities in Q1

Illustrating the message even more vividly is the chart below of gold expressed in a basket of emerging-market currencies by dividing the dollar bullion price by the Wisdom Tree Dreyfus Emerging Currency ETF (CEW).

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Gold bullion – advancing in all currencies » Investment Postcards …

[Shubha Ghosh (Wisc., Law), who with Jeff is the most well-read guy I know and a frequent blogger elsewhere, has graciously agreed to write for us a series on his very recent experience playing Jeopardy! He is coauthor of the...

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Guest Series by Shubha Ghosh, Wisconsin Law Prof and Jeopardy! Contestant Yesterday

If we broke up standard oil, we can break up the giant banks. Says who? Senator Ted Kaufman (interviewed recently by The American Prospect’s Tim Fernholz ): You and Senator Sherrod Brown have proposed an amendment that would cap the size of the largest banks and, in effect, break them up.

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If We Broke Up Standard Oil, We Can Break Up the Giant Banks

This is an unofficial list of Problem Banks compiled only from public sources. Here is the unofficial problem bank list for April 30, 2010. Changes and comments from surferdude808: Failure Friday and the FDIC issuing its enforcement actions for March contributed to many changes in the Unofficial Problem Bank List

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Unofficial Problem Bank List hits 722

Wide open frontier A limitless horizon Much like our debt load. by Soylent Green is People From the FDIC: Union Bank, National Association, San Francisco, California, Assumes All of the Deposits of Frontier Bank, Everett, Washington Frontier Bank, Everett, Washington, was closed today by the Washington Department of Financial Institutions, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. ..

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Bank Failure #64: Frontier Bank, Everett, Washington

As some of you may be aware, New York Times columnist Linda Greenhouse wrote a column a couple of days ago comparing the new Arizona immigration law to Nazi Germany, apartheid era South Africa, and states that “the system of internal passports was one of the more distasteful features of life in the Soviet Union”.

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A Response to Linda Greenhouse….

This piece was drawn from a more in-depth RGE Analysis: Greek Endgame: Time for ‘Plan B’   From the Financial Times:     The past weekend’s spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund in Washington focused on the Greek sovereign debt crisis – the first such crisis in living memory to concern a high-income country, and in the eurozone no less.

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The Crisis Will Spread Without a Plan B

During Bolivian President Evo Morales’s first official visit to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s home state of Barinas on Thursday, the two socialist allies agreed to continue increasing bi-national cooperation in the areas of food and energy production.

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Bolivia and Venezuela to Form Six Joint Companies for Energy and Food Security

I want to touch on three great events that have taken place in Seward over the past week: the symposium on entrepreneurship, the workshop with Holocaust survivor Dr. Eger, both sponsored by the Seward Area Chamber of Commerce, and the candidates forum sponsored by the Seward County League of Women Voters.

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Proud To Be Part of Our Active Community…

Butler bank failure Deposits gone with the wind I don’t give a damn by Soylent Green is People From the FDIC: Community First Bank, Butler, Missouri, Assumes All of the Deposits of BC National Banks, Butler, Missouri BC National Banks, Butler, Missouri, was closed today by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver.

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Bank Failure #63: BC National Banks, Butler, Missouri

Leafy green money The breakfast of Champion They drank our milk shake by Soylent Green is People From the FDIC: Bankliberty, Liberty, Missouri, Assumes All of the Deposits of Champion Bank, Creve Coeur, Missouri Champion Bank, Creve Coeur, Missouri, was closed today by the Missouri Division of Finance, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. … As of December 31, 2009, Champion Bank had approximately $187.3 million in total assets and $153.8 million in total deposits….

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Bank Failure #62: Champion Bank, Creve Coeur, Missouri