More Web jewels found today

Tim Duy's Fed Watch, Too Little:

Federal Reserve policymakers must be pleased with themselves. Market participants have fallen in line like lemmings off a cliff pursuing the obvious trades as the excitement over quantitative easing builds. Equities, bonds, commodities are all up. Dollar is down. Perhaps more importantly, measured inflation expectations have trended higher. Psychology is a powerful thing. Like leverage. ... (keep reading).

Prajakta Bhide et al (Nouriel Roubini's Economonitor), What's ahead for the Fed?:

An anemic and subpar U.S. recovery amid balance-sheet repair, weak demand, slack in the economy and disinflationary pressures has always been our baseline scenario. By the summer of 2010, the disinflationary bias in expectations had become more evident, and the economy—lacking a self-sustained recovery—had started heading toward a dangerous stall speed. We vocally expressed our concerns around deflation/stagnation/double-dip scenarios and called for more policy action, while recognizing that the effects on the real economy would be limited. (Keep reading.)

Jon Hilsenrath and Jonathan Cheng ($WSJ), Fed Gears Up for Stimulus:

The Federal Reserve is close to embarking on another round of monetary stimulus next week, against the backdrop of a weak economy and low inflation—and despite doubts about the wisdom and efficacy of the policy among economists and some of the Fed's own decision makers. (Keep reading.)

Marshall Eckblad ($WSJ), Banks Turn Their Reserves to Profit:

Call it steroids for bank profits.

The biggest U.S. banks virtually doubled their collective earnings in the third quarter just by injecting $8.1 billion into net income from funds they had set aside to cover loan losses.

There are 18 commercial banks in the U.S. with at least $50 billion in assets, and together they earned an adjusted $16.8 billion in the third quarter. Of those profits, nearly half, or 48%, were from drawing down what bankers call loan-loss reserves, according to an analysis by Dow Jones Newswires. A year ago, the same 18 banks earned $6.2 billion in quarterly profits; at that time, they added more than $7.8 billion to the same reserves, a move that reduced their profits. The analysis omits a $10.4 billion noncash charge to earnings that Bank of America Corp. disclosed during the third quarter. (Keep reading.)

Stiglitz en dos idiomas. Stiglitz in two languages.

¡Me encanta el Project Syndicate! Permite leer a Stiglitz sobre regulación financiera en inglés o en español.

Su tesis:

Lo que se necesita es una estrategia de múltiples puntas, que incluya impuestos especiales, mayores requisitos de capital, una supervisión más estrecha y limitaciones al tamaño y las actividades de toma de riesgo.

Al leer las dos versiones, no sólo puedes absorber los comentarios provocativos de Stiglitz sino también adquerir un glosario genial sobre megabancos y riesgo sistémico:

Too-big-to-fail = Demasiado grande para quebrar
Too-complex-to-fail = Demasiado complejo como para quebrar
Too interconnected to fail = Demasiado entrelazadas como para quebrar
Excessive risk taking = Una toma de riesgos excesiva.

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I love Project Syndicate! It gives you Stiglitz on financial regulation in English and Spanish both.

His thesis:

What is required is a multi-prong approach, including special taxes, increased capital requirements, tighter supervision, and limits on size and risk-taking activities.

By reading both versions, you come away with not only Stiglitz's provocative sommentary but also a nifty glossary on megabanks and systemic risk:

Too-big-to-fail = Demasiado grande para quebrar

Too-interconnected to fail = Demasiado entrelazadas como para quebrar
Excessive risk taking = Una toma de riesgos excesiva