Category: Credit Crisis 2012
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
The Market Calls BS on Spain’s Efforts to Cover Its Toxic Banking Debt / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Graham_Summers
In a previous article I began delving into the toxic sewer that is the Spanish banking system. At the root of the problem is the previously unregulated Spanish cajas or regional/ local banks which own as much as 56% of all Spanish mortgages.
To give you an idea of how bad things are with the cajas, consider that in February 2011 the Spanish Government implemented legislation demanding all Spanish banks have equity equal to 8% of their “risk-weighted assets.” Those banks that failed to meet this requirement had to either merge with larger banks or face partial nationalization.
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Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Demand for Loans Rose, But Bankers Remain Cautious / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Asha_Bangalore
The Fed’s Senior Loan Officer Survey of the second quarter shows an increase in the demand for loans from large, medium and small firms (see Chart 1 and 2).
Monday, April 30, 2012
Force Taxpayers to Buy Spanish Bonds is Ludicrous Proposal From Harvard Academic Economics Professor / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Mike_Shedlock
As the economic crisis lingers on, the number of ludicrous proposals to deal with the crisis rises every month.
I have lost count by now of preposterous ideas and who made them (does anyone have the complete list?), but a proposal by Harvard Economics professor Martin Feldstein to force taxpayers to buy Spanish bonds surely makes the list of top-five ludicrous proposals.
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Sunday, April 29, 2012
Giant Sucking Sound as Demand for Credit in Europe Collapses; Pritchard Misses the Boat / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Mike_Shedlock
In a report on fixed income, David Owen, Chief European Financial Economist at Jefferies, notes that demand for credit in Europe has plunged.
Owen asks Is it the supply or demand for credit that matters?
Read full article... Read full article...25 April 2012
Perhaps the most memorable comment Mario Draghi made to the European Parliament today was the need for a euro area Growth Pact, but he did draw comfort from the results of the ECB's latest Bank Lending survey.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Savings, investment, and the Keynesian preference – a follow-up / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Alasdair_Macleod
There is a general belief that government finances are somehow immune from the financial reality faced by everyone else – an illusion fostered by bond markets and supported by the public’s wishful thinking. Look no further than the plight of the eurozone for evidence of the reality. Not only that, but history tells us that countries regularly default, yet we continue to buy government bonds in the belief they are less risky than any private sector debt. And if we begin to question the status quo, we are even told by financial regulators that government debt is less risky than anything else. Banking regulation enshrines it in Basel Committee guidelines, and modern portfolio theory – which guides securities regulation – casts it in stone.
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Saturday, April 28, 2012
Central Banks at the End of the Pier Show / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Adrian_Ash
— Tell me now, Stephen said, poking the boy's shoulder with the book, what is a pier.
— A pier, sir, Armstrong said. A thing out in the waves. A kind of bridge. Kingstown pier, sir [...]
— Kingstown pier, Stephen said. Yes, a disappointed bridge.
James Joyce, Ulysses (Paris, 1922)
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Is the U.S. Financial System Finally Stable? / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2012
By: EWI
Four years after we brushed up against "financial Armageddon," did you think you'd be reading this?
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said...banks need to have more capital at hand in order to ensure the financial system is stable. Bernanke said regulators were taking steps to force financial institutions to hold higher capital buffers...Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, April 23, 2012
German Bond Yield Trend Harbinger for U.S. Treasuries? / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Mike_Paulenoff
In our comparison chart of the Spanish, German and U.S. 10-year Yield, we see that downward pressure on Bund yield persists, owing to a flight to safety from the Euro-zone periphery into German paper. Bund yield has violated a multi-month support area, which projects a target of 1.25%.
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Thursday, April 19, 2012
European Stability Mechanism Needs Direct Access to Europe's Banks / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Bloomberg
Jose Vinals, director of the IMF's monetary and capital markets department, spoke with Bloomberg Television's Margaret Brennan today and said that the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) should be able to put capital into banks without going through national governments to "de-link the sovereign and banking risk at the national level."
Vinals also warned against getting "caught into a wave of pessimism by recent market data" even if the "situation is uncertain" in countries like Spain and Italy.
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Thursday, April 19, 2012
Fearful, Anti-Social Cash Hoarding / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Adrian_Ash
How much longer will companies be allowed to run themselves for cash...?
HOARDING stuff until your home is a health hazard and your family and neighbors hate you isn't only a TV "reality". Perhaps 1 million US citizens are prey to the hoarding compulsion on one estimate, fighting the urge to let everything just keep piling up.
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Sunday, April 15, 2012
Switzerland's New Controls for Runaway Alternative Investments, Shadow Banking & Tax Avoidance Schemes? / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
By: DK_Matai
Switzerland is preparing sweeping new rules for its traditionally freewheeling private wealth management, investment banking, alternative investment and shadow banking industry, in an overhaul that is likely to unsettle investors and asset managers around the world. Based on the high density of emails and telephone calls received, ATCA 5000's distinguished members -- chairmen and chief executives, senior bankers, high-ranking government officials, significant investors, asset managers and ultra high net worth individuals -- from more than a hundred countries are seeking to get to grips with the potential scope of the proposed new Swiss laws, which have yet to be translated into English.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
We Are Nearing the End Game of Central Bank Intervention / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Graham_Summers
Because of a lack of foreign interest in long-term Treasuries, the Fed decided to step in to pick up the slack. As a result of this, the US Federal Reserve has accounted for 91% of all new debt issuance in the 20+years bracket. Put another way, the US Federal Reserve is now effectively the long-end of the US debt market.
Thursday, April 05, 2012
The Student Loan Bubble is the Next Subprime Trillion Dollar Sinkhole / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Money_Morning
Martin Hutchinson writes:
Don't look now but there's another giant bubble out there. It's so big it rivals subprime.
I'm talking about the student loan bubble. Recently, the outstanding volume of student loans passed $1 trillion. What's more bothersome is that the average individual amount owed by new college graduates has passed $25,000.
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Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Why the Fed Will Be Powerless to Stop The Real Crash / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Graham_Summers
Over the last two years, I’ve been caught into believing a Crash was coming several times. In some ways I was right: we got sizable corrections of 15+%. But we never got the REAL CRASH I thought we would because the Fed stepped in.
So what makes this time different?
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Thursday, March 29, 2012
Goldman Sachs Should 'Stop Saying' It Puts Customers First / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Bloomberg
Former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, who serves as a senior policy advisor for Goldman Sachs, spoke to Bloomberg TV's Erik Schatzker this morning on "Inside Track." Levitt said that Goldman should "stop saying" the firm puts customers first and that Lloyd Blankfein's "future is determined really by what the business is over the course of coming months."
Monday, March 26, 2012
Bank Lobby's Onslaught Shifts Debate on Volcker Rule / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Bloomberg
BLOOMBERG TV EXCLUSIVE: Bloomberg Television's economics editor Michael McKee spoke to Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser from the Banque de France in Paris. Plosser said that he sees no need for more stimulus as the U.S. economy recovers, and he has "cautious optimism" for economic improvement.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
MF Global Financial Collapse is Obama's Hurricane Katrina / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Jesse
Bill Black is interviewed on the Capital Accounts Show on RT.
I would be glad to show a video of Bill Black discussing important financial matters such as this on a mainstream US video program but there don't seem to be any.
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Sunday, March 25, 2012
Becoming the Bank / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Ashvin_Pandurangi
Both the mainstream and alternative media spend a good amount of time reporting on the excesses of Wall Street, which range from extremely disproportionate levels of compensation to blatantly criminal practices. Whether we are talking about Goldman Sachs defrauding and front-running clients or former New Jersey governor and MF Global CEO Jon Corzine illegally transferring client funds to JP Morgan, there is a certain air of "so whatness" to the entire discussion. How extensive are these occurrences and why should we care?
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Saturday, March 24, 2012
Breaking News: MF Global’s Corzine Ordered Funds Moved to JPMorgan / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Bloomberg
Bloomberg TV reports on the news that Jon Corzine, MF Global Holding Ltd.'s chief executive officer, allegedly gave "direct instructions" to transfer $200 million from a customer fund account to meet an overdraft in one of the brokerage's JPMorgan Chase & Co. accounts in London, according to an e-mail sent by a firm executive.
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Thursday, March 22, 2012
WALL STREET CONFIDENCE TRICK: How "Interest Rate Swaps" Are Bankrupting Local Governments / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Ellen_Brown
Far from reducing risk, derivatives increase risk, often with catastrophic results. — Derivatives expert Satyajit Das, Extreme Money (2011)
The “toxic culture of greed” on Wall Street was highlighted again last week, when Greg Smith went public with his resignation from Goldman Sachs in a scathing oped published in the New York Times. In other recent eyebrow-raisers, LIBOR rates—the benchmark interest rates involved in interest rate swaps—were shown to be manipulated by the banks that would have to pay up; and the objectivity of the ISDA (International Swaps and Derivatives Association) was called into question, when a 50% haircut for creditors was not declared a “default” requiring counterparties to pay on credit default swaps on Greek sovereign debt.
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