This article from the Times Online makes abundantly clear that UK banks do not plan to pass on any future base rate cuts by the Bank of England to customers. However it does not do a very good job of explaining why the bankers think they will not be sufficiently profitable if they add the […]
Read more...The Financial Times reports that AIG is up to its old tricks, back again to the trough for more money. Christmas The Iceland credit default swaps settlement is coming soon, you know. The worst is that AIG is pretending to act as if this is a negotiation as opposed to extortion. Get a load of […]
Read more...Blind pilot guided to land by RAF BBC (hat tip reader Paul) Lack of clarity undermines TARP, firms say Investment News. A remarkably high percentage are reluctant to participate. Prosperity Bank Acquires All the Deposits of Franklin Bank, S.S.B., Houston, Texas FDIC. Reader Steve points out that Franklin Bank was owned by Lew Ranieri, who […]
Read more...Reader Chris pointed us to some stories today on the difficult conditions in the shipping industry, the result of a falloff in trade. From Bloomberg: At least 20 percent of the vessels most commonly hired to haul coal and ore are sitting empty as steelmakers cut output and dwindling trade credit halts deliveries, Lorentzen & […]
Read more...The dreary forecast comes from Eric Fishwick, chief economist at CLSA, an Asia-focused private equity firm. His reports in particular contends that the Chinese cannot possibly meet its growth projections for next year. One does not cross the officialdom in China casually. That suggests that either 1) CLSA is quite confident they won’t be making […]
Read more...In case you somehow managed to miss it, our friendly pawnbroker of last resort central bank has been taking lots of crap collateral in return for loans under its alphabet soup of facilities. As we are learaning in our housing meltdown, collateral may not prove to be worth as much as it was said to […]
Read more...As Dani Rodrik, who saw this item first, said, “Why do I think this is really bad news?” Remarkably, the article suggests that XIe might not attend the November 15 summit in Washington to discuss the future of the world financial order. This would be particularly noteworthy given China’s strong desire to push for a […]
Read more...Scientists Turn Tequila into Diamonds PhysOrg Monsoon link to fall of dynasties BBC Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question New York Times. In August, our guest bloggers Paul Davis (in “Rinse and Repeat“) and Jim Fitch (“The real purposes of a democratic society …“) offered some skeptical commentary on the US-Georgian version of […]
Read more...Restricted credit and access to foreign exchange may lead farmers to cut production, worsening agricultural price pressures. From the Financial Times: The world might face a repeat of this year’s food crisis as the credit crunch encroaches on the agricultural market, leading farmers to cut their planting because of falling prices and lack of finance […]
Read more...A front page story in the Wall Street Journal discusses how continued forced selling by hedge funds was the proximate cause of the sharp selloff of the last two days (um, the simply lousy economic news. such as lousy payrolls, horrific retail sales, no sales of credit card bonds in the last month, and similarly […]
Read more...Bloomberg has a good report today explaining why the DTCC report saying the credit default swaps market is only $34 trillion in notional outstanding isn’t all that it is cracked up to be. We muttered darkly at the time that some might read more into the DTCC report, released yesterday, than it deserved. Useful is […]
Read more...Personally, I would lay more blame for any damage to the Swiss banking brand to the fear of the possible compromise of Switzerland’s standing as a tax haven. However, as we will discuss, the giant Swiss bank UBS has lost a lot of prvate banking clients over worries about the bank’s soundness, something completely contrary […]
Read more...We managed to miss this story on China’s diesel imports sent to us by reader Michael. When oil prices rose so rapidly early in the year, many pointed to robust growth in demand from China, and expected that level of growth to continue. Skeptics like your contrarian blogger pointed out other factors could be at […]
Read more...The unusually dramatic headline comes from the New York Times. Note this drop was a not a surprise to some analysts such as Gary Shilling, who predicted a marked fall in retail sales, which when you allow for the fact that gas and food are not terribly discretionary, implies much greater declines in apparel and […]
Read more...The Japanese officialdom signaled an interest in a cheaper yen when the Nikkei breached 25 year lows. But the concern was not the level of the yen per se, but trying to use a weaker yen (it had run up to over 92 to the dollar) as to a desperate effort to shore up the […]
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