You know that phrase, “You can’t have your cake and eat it too”? Well aparently you can if you’re a US bank. The US suspended all mark to market requirements for bank assets back in 08. Since the banking crisis took hold and bank assets became valueless, banks have been allowed to ignore this incovenient […]

In the last two days Europe’s agreement on the Greek bail-out fund and the larger, related Europe-wide bail out fund have begun to unravel. First the the in-coming, newly elected government of the Slovak republic and their likely President Iveta Radicova re-iterated her conviction that the Slovak Republic should not contribute its share of the

Between September and November, in the UK and the US, we are going to have the Political Killing Season. We may also have it elsewhere but I haven’t given it enough thought yet. From September onwards the reality of Cuts will start to make itself felt. So far they have not. But when the new

I think there is a basic asymmetry in US and EU bank debts, which is having an effect on US/Eu relations. EU banks own/are exposed to large losses on bad debts in US real estate. Both residential and commercial. Banks such as Deutsche Bank, Soc Gen and RBS to name just a few obviousl ones.

So what was last week? Was it the proof that we were just having a little re-trace before powering on with the recovery? Or was it a week of manufactured confidence, created and sustained for the entire week by HFT trades designed to squeeze short sellers and corall sentiment back to the party line? Well

There are many things wrong with our present political and economic system. We must fix the financial system but we must also, for the first time in a generation, have a coherent and forward looking scientific and industrial research and development strategy. One that is not hangstrung by the petty fogging small mindedness of beaurocratic

In a moment of crisis it is not enough after a while to carry on shouting about what is wrong. At some point you do have to start thinking about how to put things right. What things would we do differently? The challenge lain down for those who want change is, ‘Well what’s your plan

It is so engrained in us to think and speak of ‘the economy’ that we are, I think, having trouble seeing that there no longer is just one economy. There are two. Finance and the rest. They are, of course, still joined. But increasingly the Financial world has ceased to be a partner. It has

Back on 19th May I wrote “I think Germany finally has had enough. Enough of being blackmailed by Sarkozy and enough of telephone calls from Obama. The German’s don’t like being told what to do.” (Things Get Political and Nasty). Since then tensions have risen. My point then was that what the US needs and

Ask yourself this, what are ‘we’ – our leaders and the bankers – trying to get us back to? Sustainable growth and development? Or irresponsible risk-taking and unstable bubble creation? Which do you think the bankers and politicians would say they are going for? Of course there’s no question is there? Only problem is they