Sense on Cents

Some random thoughts and questions in the midst of trying to determine what is really going on in the markets, the economy, and the world:

1. Just how healthy are our major money center banks? How many toxic mortgage related assets remain on their books? Where are those assets marked? With the housing market continuing to erode, and it is, how can those asset valuations not be eroding as well?

2. Will the American public ever truly learn what happened inside Bernard Madoff’s operations?

3. What about Allen Stanford? His trial has been postponed for two years. Do we really think Stanford will ever stand trial? Will we ever learn the nature of this scam? Was Stanford acting on behalf of the Department of Justice in operating his Caribbean based operation? Was the US government, that is the DOJ, effectively complicit in Stanford’s scheme? Will we ever know?

4. Does the official unemployment rate mean anything anymore? The official unemployment rate (U-3) for years would move in increments of .1 to .2 and we witness in the last two months a decline of .8. Is this to be believed? Has the Bureau of Labor Statistics compromised its own integrity in the process?

5. Is our nation any better prepared in terms of financial regulation and oversight? We witness the SEC in disarray in terms of future funding of operations and subsequent allocation of resources. Does this matter as long as the market is headed higher? What about Wall Street’s own self-regulator, FINRA? Will America ever truly learn what happened within FINRA’s internal investment portfolio? Did FINRA front-run the auction-rate securities market in 2007 as I believe they did? Did FINRA have its own funds directly or indirectly invested in Bernie Madoff’s operations? What was the real nature of Mary Schapiro’s relationship with Madoff? Will we ever learn the details on all these fronts?

6. What about Ben Bernanke’s credibility? Is he given a hall pass when stating that inflation in emerging markets is not a function of the quantitative easing programs of the Federal Reserve?

7. Will lawsuits addressing mortgage fraud (if not worse) brought against the large money center banks be properly adjudicated or dismissed as noise in the midst of trying to nurse our economy back to health?

8. So many questions left unanswered. Can America really move forward when questions such as these are not properly addressed? Who in our media will bang the drum on these questions and others? Who in our government will demand answers to these questions? If nobody is willing to ask the questions, can we assume these issues do not really exist?

How does that work?

What questions would you like to see addressed?

Larry Doyle

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I have no affiliation or business interest with any entity referenced in this commentary. The opinions expressed are my own and not those of Greenwich Investment Management. As President of Greenwich Investment Management, an SEC regulated privately held registered investment adviser, I am merely a proponent of real transparency within our markets so that investor confidence and investor protection can be achieved.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 7th, 2011 at 7:13 AM and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.