Market Talk

We’re not tough enough to take the pain.

That’s why it’s come down to this, citizens — the Fed priming more QE, doing “whatever it takes” to alleviate the hardship. The ceaseless efforts to artificially prop up asset prices. The extraordinary amount of Americans’ monthly personal income now derived directly from Uncle Sam.

It should be much more expedient and ultimately less costly for the government to simply step back and let the economic chips fall where they may. But it’ll hurt, and the nation’s leadership doesn’t think we citizens can handle the sting.

Indeed, we often come across like a society of coddled whiners who can’t stand to even be the slightest bit inconvenienced, never mind subjected to any degree of physical or psychological travail. We can’t handle bad reception on our iPhones, why should the government expect us to deal with the hardship that would come with allowing home prices to reach their natural level, to finally unleash market-clearing prices and probably the failure of more big banks and other institutions? Continue reading…

- SEC investigating a few dozen financial firms regarding repo 105s is a welcome move, but it brings into question whether the agency has enough reach to be effective, Yves Smith says.

- Amazon (AMZN) currently controls nearly all of the e-book market. That will change with the iPad, Nook and others taking share, but maybe they can all thrive together, MediaMemo blogger Peter Kafka ponders.

- Current financial reform proposals are “toothless facades of what real regulation should look like,” Barry Ritholtz writes. He offers 10 questions finance reformers need to answer before passing legislation.

- New iPhones potentially on both AT&T (T) and Verizon Wireless may possible be Palm’s worst nightmare, Digital Daily blogger John Paczkowski says.

- This March has been a great month for stocks. And more gains may be on the way. April’s historically one of the best months of the year for the market, with the Dow averaging a 1.9% gain in April over last 50 years, according to Bespoke.

- “Regulation has to be smarter than something as simple as narrow banking,” Paul Krugman says. “Government backing — the 21st-century version of deposit insurance — plus regulation so that the backed institutions don’t abuse the privilege is still the way to go.”

- Non-profits can’t possibly save print journalism, Newsosaur blogger Alan Mutter argues.

- Ireland’s government announced plans to inject billions of euros into the nation’s beleaguered banking system and outlined bigger-than-expected discounts on loans to be transferred by financial institutions to the nation’s “bad bank.”

- Wondering what the next big battle between Wall Street and Washington will be? Capital ratios and liquidity, Andrew Ross Sorkin says.

- This perfectly exemplifies how bad the job market truly has gotten.