More bad news for banks

Me oh my the financiers in the US are deeper and deeper in the fecal matter they hawked as subprime mortgage instruments. CitiGroup wrote off at year's end for the final quarter us$20m; Merrill with write off almost as much; JP Morgan slightly less...and so it goes. UBS the Swiss bank has shut down its private investment arm for rich Americans who wanted to place their ill gotten gains somewhere which would bring in high returns say 20 to 30 per cent, and are now hollering foul because they lost a sizeable but hardly a death knell bundle on subprime mortgages.
And as 18Brumaire wrote, which is only saying the obvious, these slick bankers are selling their souls and their power to foreign states and banks in straightforwardly manner in exchange of billions in liquidity. Commonly stated in the press, the foreigners have non voting shares. Let's call a spade of spade here! Non voting rights means if these sovereign funds and banks think that the Americans are not tending their money well, they're going to turn the screws on them till the bankers act in the way the foreigners want.
Thursday is the day in the American press for real estate news. Today [17 January 2008]the financial pullout of the New York Times was usually thick. Fat yes, but thin on news and pregnant with full page ads for commercial real estate which is looking sad these days. And along with attractive eye candy for buying commerical space is a book weighing a kilo hawking wonderful buys in the homes, which despite New York's privileged niche, are sagging in price...not only is liquidity drying up, but so is the cash to plonk down on a new house or condo or co op the more especially the banks are not giving easy loans or mortgages. Gone are the days of a quick buck, a quick sales, and a quick profit.