This morning Europe woke up to find the Asian markets had all plunged. Japan down 1.5%, the Hang Seng down 2%, Shanghai smarting at 2.93% down and India down over 2% as well. European bourses promptly ran for the exits. London opened 1.7% down, Paris 2% down and Frankfurt down 1.8%. A second day of …
This wonderful image by Escher of two hands drawing each other is one of my favourite pieces of modern art. For me, it is a brilliant visualization of the idea of bootstrapping. Or to put it more loosely, how you get something from nothing. Evolution is an example. From something simple you can get something …
Today S&P downgraded the giant French bank Credit Agricole (GCA). The reason given is GCA’s massive exposure to Greek debts. Credit Agricole is sitting on a volcanoe of Greek debt and also owns Greece’s Emporiki bank which means it is therefore potentially on the hook for Emporiki’s insolvency as well. Not a surprise then that the French …
Are German banks in worse shape than the French? Read More »
For those of you wondering if our ‘recovery’ is on track and if our future’s are being assured by those smartest men in the room. In April the Philadelphia Fed’s index of manufacturing in its area stood at 18.5. (These indexes are compiled by regular surveys) “Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected the gauge to …
Newsflash! – Economists continue to be ‘surprised’. Read More »
“This shit is not democracy!” This is what crowds in Madrid were shouting earlier this week. “NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH REVOLUTION.” Proclaimed one placard. Utterly wonderful! Here you can find comments and links to videos showing police clearing peaceful protesters and here you can find photos. According to the AP news wire this morning, …
A couple of weeks ago I had the great good fortune to have a long talk with Nicholas Shaxson, the author of “Treasure Islands – tax havens and the men who stole the world.” We had a wide ranging discussion including, of course, his book, the reactions he’s had to it, particularly from within the …
There seem to be to be two broad narratives of our present situation. The dominant, official narrative, is that there was a technical crisis of money flow, precipitated by a bolus of bad debts which then caused a collapse of confidence in the value of several large asset classes. What was required was to show that …
I was in Timisoara Romania last week. Timisoara is a city of roughly 320k people on the Western edge of Romania. On the drive in to the city I was struck by the huge number of different banks I kept passing. From one corner of the central square eight different banks were in sight of …
A squib from Bloomberg, quoting the German Newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, “Munich prosecutors plan to file embezzlement charges against all members of Bayerische Landesbank’s former board….” Having the words “all former members” and “embezzlement charges” in the same sentence just makes my day. Ever since the worlds’ banks told us they were suddenly short of liquidity, …
A peek into one of the deepest little cesspits in Europe Read More »
In the first part, The Backdoor to China, I suggested how the central Chinese authorities had effectively lost control of bank lending and property speculation within mainland China and argued that the new and rising power in China now lay in the growing relationship between China’s regional governments and international finance operating in Hong Kong. …
Making the New Sub Prime – Part 2 – What’s in store Read More »
