Dan M <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Because I believe that historical data is useful. I think this is a point > where we have very strong differences. In your replies to most, you tend to > ignore/snip a wealth of data that have been presented. Here's some data for you. http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/cp/ For terms between 1 and 90 days, the highest AA nonfinancial commercial paper interest rate is 2.23%. Looks fine to me. Even the AA financials are paying at most 3.3%. The only trouble spots are the A2/P2 nonfinancials (risky companies) and the AA asset-backed debt (risky due to MBS problems), and even there companies can borrow at less than 6.1% and 4.42%, respectively. Hardly a crisis of biblical proportions. The only data I see that is at all interesting is the A2/P2 nonfinancial spread time series, which spiked from below 1% to 3 or 4% recently. Evidently some lenders were pulling their money out of riskier commercial paper. That is interesting, but hardly a crisis. So some risky companies have to pay 3% over the AA rate. It seems "the market" has voted that credit for riskier companies was too loose for the current conditions, and so tightened up a bit. http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/cp/outstandings.htm Here is the not seasonally adjusted data from the above link for the past two weeks: Commercial Paper Outstanding (billions) Total NonFin Fin AB Aug 27 1,758.2 203.7 806.8 745.6 Sep 3 1,740.9 206.2 790.4 742.1 10 1,756.4 205.4 808.1 740.9 17 1,682.4 204.1 765.1 708.3 24 1,638.4 192.6 734.1 711.7 So, between Sep 10 and Sep 24, total outstanding commercial paper dropped by $118B (6.7%), which breaks out into $13B for nonfinancial, $74B for financial, and $29B or asset-backed. A contraction, to be sure, but hardly a serious crisis. Credit got a little tighter. Especially in the financial and asset-backed markets. That actually strikes me as a good thing, since for several years credit has been much too loose in the financial and asset-backed markets. No crisis here. But I expect our politicians to funnel my tax dollars to the special interests anyway. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
