Monday, September 22, 2008

SEC partly to Blame, allowing increased leverage 2002

Jesse's Café Américain: "maybe the S.E.C. is trying to cover up its own culpability in this crisis. Four years ago, the agency pushed through a rule that allowed the big investment banks to take on a great deal more debt. As a result, debt ratios rose from about 12 to 1 to more like 30 to 1. Guess what Lehman’s debt ratio was when it went bust? Yep: 30 to 1.

SAVE THE MONEY MARKET FUNDS The precipitating event here was the news that the Reserve Fund, a money market fund that caters to institutions, had “broken the buck” and was paying investors 97 cents on the dollar. That is only the second time that’s ever happened, and it had to scare investors, because most of us have come to think of money market funds as being the equivalent of bank savings account — perfectly safe."

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