Category: Credit Crisis 2012
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Friday, September 07, 2012
Hungary Throws Out Monsanto AND The IMF / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
I don't know about you, but I would label my personal knowledge of Hungary as wanting, if not painfully incomplete. It's not an easy country to come to grips with, not least of all of course because Hungarian doesn't look like any western language we know with the possible exception of Finnish. I did visit just after the Wall came down, and remember huge contrasts, almost paradoxes, between rural poverty and a capital, Budapest, that was much richer than other capitals such as Prague, a leftover of Budapest's status as meeting place between western and eastern diplomats and businessmen.
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Thursday, August 30, 2012
Currency Twisters and Firestorms on Central Banks Obvious Failure / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2012
Begin with a preface to a meaningful event that could change the entire US landscape, a redux of what happened four years ago. Consider the next Wall Street financial firm failure. It is in progress. It is not avoidable. It will have numerous ramifications. It will open the door to account thefts, the burial of documents, the ransack of undesired leveraged positions, the concealment of wrecked derivatives, and a path toward the merger of surviving (selected core) firms. It will urge an extreme defensive posture. Back in 2008, both Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers fell. The former because they had too much gold exposure with anti-US$ hedges. The latter because they led in mortgage exposure. Both failures were greatly exploited. My favorite item was the reload given to JPMorgan on a quiet Saturday morning (convened at 6am no less) at the Bankruptcy court of Manhattan. The shadowy syndicate titan was handed $138 billion to handle the private accounts from the fallen banks. Instead, the funds represented a reload for JPMorgan to continue their gold suppression game. Of course, they have been defending American freedom with vigor, preserving the integrity of the US banking system, and assuring the way of life in the nation, while leeching $billions from the public trough. Since their grant, the unassailable JPM has seen fit to gobble private accounts at both MFGlobal and PFG-Best, with regulatory blessing as the courts sprinkled fascist holy water.
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Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Prince Harry, Goldman Sachs Pays Better than Porn / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
Dear Sir,
It has come to our attention that you have been offered a role in a porn film for $10 million. We urge you to reject it.
Princely Pay and Elite Status
Goldman Sachs is prepared to pay you much better than porn, and as a partner, your position will be much more prestigious than the Duke of York's role as a representative for international trade and investment. We twist country treasurers and central bankers around our little fingers. Politicians are at our beck and call. We even pay a lower tax rate than your grandmother.
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Friday, August 17, 2012
Cash Is King? Swiss Bankers' New Safe Haven: Safe Deposit Boxes Full Of Banknotes / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2012
Swiss banks have been doing an extremely brisk yet totally discreet trade with their "New Safe Haven" solution ever since the Eurozone crisis went into full swing and new bilateral tax-treaties were inked with major countries to prevent secret bank accounts in Switzerland being used for evading taxes. Those two drivers together may have inadvertently contributed to a powerful "New Safe Haven" solution.
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Saturday, August 11, 2012
China Ponzi Banks Duping Depositors Into Financing Busted Real Estate Projects / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2012
Top Chinese banks are involved in Ponzi financing of investment deals, offering interest rates over 7% to depositors, to finance real estate projects gone bust and other projects whose assets are not even disclosed.
Banks label these schemes "Wealth Management Products" (WMPs) but any individuls foolish enough to invest in them are going to lose money, perhaps all of it.
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Monday, August 06, 2012
Fallacies of Pearlstein's WaPo op-ed on Glass-Steagall / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
While not an expert on banking legislation, I've come across sufficiently visible fallacies in rejecting the notion that the repeal of Glass-Steagall was a factor of crisis, I felt confident enough to write a post describing them (jump to 'Also see'). The Washington Post now publishes an article by Steven Pearlstein repeating the same fallacies: 'Let's shatter the myth on Glass Steagall' (WP). Both Sorkin and Pearlstein are recipient of prestigious awards (Gerald Loeb and Pulitzer).
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Sunday, July 15, 2012
Fractional Reserve Banking, Let Unsound Money Wither Away / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
[This is a revised version of written testimony submitted to the the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology of the Committee on Financial Services, US House of Representatives "Fractional Reserve Banking and Central Banking as Sources of Economic Instability: The Sound Money Alternative,"]
Chairman Paul and members of the subcommittee, I am deeply honored to appear before you to testify on the topic of fractional-reserve banking. Thank you for your invitation and attention.
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Sunday, July 15, 2012
A Better Way To Finance Public Projects / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
In a local newspaper I recently read an article regarding how a school district was looking to “refinance” their outstanding bonds in an effort to reduce the interest burden on their debt. In the same issue I read how another school district expends nearly $2,000,000 yearly just to pay the interest burden on their debt.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, July 13, 2012
Moves to Make Right Now to Protect Your Financial Future / Personal_Finance / Credit Crisis 2012
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: I hear from countless investors around the world every week. Many of them want to know what "else" they can do to protect their financial future, especially now that the markets could get ugly (again).
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Friday, July 13, 2012
Can Bernanke Force Banks to Lend by Halting Interest on Excess Reserves? / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2012
Several readers have ask me to comment on a King World interview of Michael Pento.
Before I offer my comments on Pento's thoughts, let me say upfront that Eric King is a world-class interviewer. King lets his interviewees have their say, no matter what it is.
It is up to listeners to decide whether the message makes any sense or not. King merely wants the position to be well stated.
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Friday, July 13, 2012
Swiss Banking: Asymmetric Threats Mount? / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2012
Total client assets managed by Swiss banks stood at 5.3 trillion Swiss francs or 5,300 billion Swiss francs at the end of last year according to the latest data compiled by the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA), the apex body of banks in Switzerland. This includes 2,700 billion Swiss francs (51 per cent) of foreign client assets and the remainder 2,600 billion Swiss francs (49 per cent) of domestic client assets. The drop to 51 per cent of total foreign assets-under-management is the lowest recorded in four years. Titled “Banking in transition - Future prospects for banks in Switzerland”, the latest SBA study notes that the share of foreign client assets in the Swiss wealth management industry has fallen for four successive years: from 56% at the end of 2008 to 55% in 2009 to 52% in 2010 and 51% in 2011. The quantum of overseas assets under management at the end of 2008 stood at 3 trillion Swiss francs and this includes the value of securities held in client portfolios, fiduciary deposits, amounts due to clients in savings and investment accounts, and as also from time deposits.
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Friday, June 29, 2012
Global Debt Crisis 101 / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2012
Our financial predicament explained, from reszatonline.wordpress.com
Helga is the proprietor of a bar. She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, pay later.
Helga keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers' loans).
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Friday, June 22, 2012
Did RBS Hit the Greece Election Eurogeddon Bank Holiday Panic Button by Mistake? / Companies / Credit Crisis 2012
RBS Bank and its subsidiary Nat West have effectively been closed all week to all of their customers, freezing them out of control of day to day banking operations. The shutdown appears fairly complete, with thus far RBS being unable to get the system going again.
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Friday, June 22, 2012
How America Screwed Europe And Why The Road To Recovery Lies in Securitization / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2012
The Dutch call it, “Doing-an-English”. That’s when someone takes a liberty real soft and sweet and so-so-polite you hardly even noticed…until you find out you’re pregnant, or worse.
Looks like the Europeans finally noticed. Jose Manuel Barroso’s news at the G-20 summit was… "This crisis was not originated in Europe".
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Thursday, June 21, 2012
How Wall Street Financial Companies Stole Billions From Main Street / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
Funny how these stories of widespread and systematic financial corruption are so undercovered by the main stream media. Maybe it is because 'truth is a dagger pointed at their heart, which is their pocketbook.'
This is a long piece of investigative journalism, but well worth reading.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Meredith Whitney: Jamie Dimon is the Antithesis of Blankfein / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
Meredith Whitney appeared on Bloomberg Surveillance with Tom Keene this morning and talked about Jamie Dimon's testimony before Congress, saying that "He is, like nobody else, the antithesis of Blankfein. He charms. He's incredible. He gave the senators a massage and they gave him a massage back."
Whitney also said that, "I don't think this could have happened at a worse time for the banking industry."
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Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Ending of Extend and Pretend Means Capital Flight, Capital Controls and Capital Fear / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2012
The ending of extend-and-pretend is ushering in a new era of fear and uncertainty which is rapidly evolving into the next phase of the on-going credit crunch.
It is becoming clearer to many that the problems run much deeper than they had perceived, and more people all the time are realizing the systemic nature of the risks we are facing. Fear leads to knee-jerk reactions. In financial markets, it leads to volatility and self-fulfilling prophecies to the downside. It leads to capital flight, and then to capital controls.
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Wednesday, June 13, 2012
EU Banking-Union Proposal Dead Before Arrival, Lessons the EU Needs to Learn / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
A group of eurozone Nannycrats has agreed to meet later this month to devise a master plan for a eurozone fiscal and banking union. Here is a synopsis from my post on Sunday Details of the Secret "Nannyplan" Emerge; Proposed Nannygroup Uniforms
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Thursday, May 31, 2012
Credit Continues to Shrink in Euroland / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2012
Total monetary financial institutional (MFI) lending has dropped in five out of the last six months. In April, MFI lending fell 0.2% from a year ago after stalling in February and March (see Chart 1).
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Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Are Capital Controls Coming to America? / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2012
Are capital controls coming to the United States? They may be for Switzerland, The Swiss National Bank has announced that it is considering the imposition of controls. But these will be controls on euro accounts being shifted into Swiss francs.
Why would a central bank impose controls on money flowing in? Because this will raise the market price of francs in relation to euros. The central bank is dominated by mercantilist thinking. A rising currency is seen as a liability. Why? Because exporters are hit by the falling value of the foreign currency. Foreigners must pay more to buy francs to buy Swiss goods.
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