Tuesday, January 13, 2009
[1]
Will it be a gong show like the last time, full of missed signals, bad timing, and awkward lunges? Or will it be a smooth, economically stimulating affair? Still-President Bush has agreed to Barack Obama’s request to release the second tranche of TARP funds. The House financial services committee holds a hearing on the use of said funds at 2 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
[2]
The U.S. Department of Commerce releases figures on November imports and exports on Tuesday. There’ll be a deficit, as usual, so The Big Money recommends a look at the total value of imports and exports; to what extent are we just not trading anymore?
[3]
Barack Obama has picked his Cabinet, but the Senate still gets to exercise its constitutional right to vet and bless the team. The attention will likely be on Hillary Clinton; among those with economic portfolios whose confirmation hearings begin on Tuesday are HUD Secretary-designate Shaun Donovan; Peter Orszag, Obama’s nominee for chairman of the Office of Management and Budget; and Energy Department aspirant Steven Chu.
[4]
The Fed's Ben Bernanke heads to London to deliver the Stamp Memorial Lecture, named for Josiah Charles Stamp, who said that banking was "conceived in iniquity and born in sin." According to the Wall Street Journal, Bernanke will give "a detailed discussion" of the zero interest rate strategy the Fed embarked upon in December.
[5]
Gas from Russia will once again flow to tooth-chattering Eastern European countries on Tuesday after a deal between Russia and the EU. How did the situation get resolved this time? The EU will deploy 22 monitors across the pipeline to watch the flow of gas. This most recent conflagration started when the Russian company Gazprom accused Ukraine of siphoning off gas going through the pipeline for its own use.
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