Rolfe Winkler

FDIC says things look great! (Wutkowski, Reuters) FDIC’s quarterly profile of the banking sector was full of good news. Loss estimates for failed banks are down; bidders are paying more for failed banks; the deposit insurance fund has plenty of cash and the problem bank list only grew a bit. In other words, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Trouble is, that light could be a freight train in the form of higher rates or reduced government support for housing. As support is removed, to the extent it flows through to mortgage rates, we’ll see house prices head back down, giving the banking system more seizures…

Breaking down major U.S. financial reform proposals (Drawbaugh, Reuters) Very useful summary…

Class of ’10 ready to flood U.S. labor markets as ’09 grads wait tables (Dorning, Bloomberg)

Teachers facing weakest market in years (Hu, NYT)

HD pic of oil spill from NASA (imgur) You can see the oil getting picked up by a current. Could bring it back around to the east coast.

A smoking gun in BP’s Deep Horizon mess (Thom Hartman, ht Felix) BTW, if this reads like Greek to you, watch both parts of 60 Minutes’ EXCELLENT interview with Mike Williams, one of the rig’s survivors. Not only is there lots of great detail about what happened, Williams story is astounding.

Gold at $800, say some analysts (Cendrowski, CNNMoney.com) The bear case for gold is a good one. The Greek debacle reminds us that debt deflation still looks like the most likely outcome for the world economy. As the price level falls, so will gold, depending on how central banks handle deflation of course. Therein lies the bull case, which is that gold remains a must-have insurance policy to protect portfolios from the risk that indebted countries suddenly lose their ability to borrow. That could prompt monetary authorities to monetize huge quantities of debt…

Font directory (Google) Cool tool

Great Depression II (Hume, Alphaville)

Landis admits doping, accuses others including Armstrong (WSJ) Kudos to Floyd for owning up.