Comments on: Remember Sovereign Wealth Funds? http://baselinescenario.com/2008/12/10/remember-sovereign-wealth-funds/ What happened to the global economy and what we can do about it Sat, 11 Feb 2012 08:48:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Sachin Gupta http://baselinescenario.com/2008/12/10/remember-sovereign-wealth-funds/#comment-2022 Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:22:34 +0000 http://baselinescenario.com/?p=1559#comment-2022 While we are examining SWF transparency, it might be healthy and worthwhile to also question the Fed’s transparency in handling the financial crisis. After all the Fed is literally acting as a Sovereign Wealth Fund that has taken on all kinds of “toxic securities” in exchange for treasuries. Yet when Bloomberg asked the Fed for information on the collateral on its balance sheet under the Freedom of Information Act, the Fed said that it would be a “dangerous step” to release any such information. With such a response, does the Fed have any more credibility than the venerable Bernie Madoff?

]]> By: Yasser http://baselinescenario.com/2008/12/10/remember-sovereign-wealth-funds/#comment-1933 Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:18:47 +0000 http://baselinescenario.com/?p=1559#comment-1933 I think the US would not be receptive to the SWF, bulk of which is in the Middle East, China, and Russia – all huge exporters. A while back, CNN ran a brief story about the real estate in Manhattan being owned by Middle Eastern giants.The passersby that CNN interviewed were very apprehensive. Now, when you are dealing with issues of national security (Dubai ports deal fiasco was a part of this)and then of wide ranging general consumer sentiment in today’s financial collapse, things are going to be brought up in media a lot (such as the TV drama of auto bailout – if it was a regular issue, it would be unknown but now the whole world knows about auto bailout). When, this happens, I feel people are going to really dislike the idea.

The best tactic would be to gradually start the process of using SWF so that public get acclimated. The timing today is very wrong for broad SWF use.

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