Or maybe I should spell it Fanniefrädderung, which has the benefit of being more explicitly Wagnerian if harder for non German-speakers to pronounce. It’s now the Curious Capitalist’s official name for the predicament facing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Just thought of it myself (and did a quick Google search to make sure [...]

Yeah, yeah, inflation’s the highest it’s been in 17 years. But Business Week‘s Michael Mandel–who is a real live Ph.D economist!–has been writing a series of blog posts making the case that it’s going to peak soon if it hasn’t already. And that next year we may actually be talking about falling prices. A sampling: [...]

It’s Raines-bashing day here at the Curious Capitalist! First Frank, now my old friend Howell (full disclosure: the man bought me lunch once, and has always been very nice to me). In his newish incarnation as media critic for Conde Nast Portfolio, Howell has written a column arguing that the “children of Reaganomics” now populating [...]

The SEC, which has been watching this financial crisis mostly from the sidelines so far, is suddenly on the warpath. First it announced emergency rules meant to make it harder to short-sell certain financial stocks, among them Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Now it’s reportedly flinging subpoenas around the offices of Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, [...]

Franklin Delano Raines, who ran Fannie Mae before being forced to resign amid an accounting scandal in 2004, and still owns stock in the company, has a very strange op-ed today in the Washington Post. Raines starts out by arguing that the loan losses so far at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are actually pretty [...]

My column on and Q&A with John Mackey of Whole Foods and Kip Tindell of the Container Store, who were housemates in college and now both run companies on the principle that employees and customers come before shareholders, has been generating some intriguing responses. I heard from another of their University of Texas housemates, an [...]

Among the most remarkable (I know, because I’ve already remarked upon it, and I’m not the only one) of the new rules on home mortgage lending finalized Monday by the Federal Reserve is the one that aims to: Prohibit a lender from making a loan without regard to borrowers’ ability to repay the loan from [...]

Fannie who? Freddie what? I’m on va-ca-tion. The only potentially work-related thing I did today was try the new we-can-do-healthy-too drinks that launch tomorrow at Starbucks. The Vivanno–in orange mango banana and banana chocolate–is a $3.95 smoothie made with a whole banana, whey protein and fiber powder, and then some combination of milk, ice, cocoa [...]

Who dominates the U.S. mortgage market? Well, depends when you’re asking. I spent some time today playing with the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds data on home mortgage lending. Here’s what I found. First, the long-term picture: Graphic by Feilding Cage/TIME.com As you can see, thrifts (savings & loan companies and savings banks) were the [...]