[lbo-talk] [Marxism] Subprime crisis

Julio Huato juliohuato at gmail.com
Tue Jan 15 02:26:02 PST 2008


A brief comment on the charts here:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhgjvbdv_274hf5r9jgk

This is to show that, to my understanding, there's *no evidence* that "interest rate spreads are falling back to more normal ranges." The rates the Fed "sets" or influences more directly are the overnight federal funds rate and the 3-month T bill yield. That's what open market transactions seek to accomplish. Letting alone rates for longer terms, just looking at these short term rates, there's a clear, massive "flight to quality." Hence the spectacular dip of the 3-month T bill yield. I mean, it's not only the Fed's actions, but also market players massively dumping even the "top quality" private credit securities. To judge by this, bank "prime," financial commercial paper (of course), CDs, and Eurodeposits (unregulated, offshore private USD credit) are all highly suspect.



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