Author Archives: Nick Corbishley

“The Government needs to become as flexible and mobile as an IT company, to automate all functions and services,… reduce 60% of officials, introduce large-scale privatization and outsourcing of government functions.”

“Many people in Europe are following with admiration what is now happening in [Latin America],” said Wikileaks’ editor-in-chief and close confidant of Assange. “When looking at the political landscape in Europe all we have are dark forces.”

When two of the largest countries on the American continent, Brazil and Argentina, sign an agreement to establish a bilateral payment system in local currencies, it is worth taking note. 

Credit Suisse may have taken an “important step” in its turnaround process, as its unfortunately named chairman Alex Lehmann said this week, but it is also suffering a gathering run on deposits

Spain already witnessed one of the most spectacular housing bubbles and busts so far this century. As pressures in the mortgage market grow, the government and banks are determined to avoid a rerun.

As life gets prohibitively expensive for people living in the US (and many other rich economies), relatively cheaper countries like Mexico are becoming increasingly attractive. But for local people the costs are growing.

Even as divisions rise in the world, the governments of the world’s largest economies appear to be on a strikingly similar page when it comes to rolling out digital health certificates, digital identity schemes and central bank digital currencies.

What happens when one of Latin America’s smaller economies, on the US doorstep, decides to throw its lot in with China? It looks like we are about to see.

As Mexico’s GMO ban looms ever larger, the US National Corn Growers Association is calling for the The U.S. Trade Representative to intervene, “before it is too late”.

Palantir, with intimate ties to defense, intelligence and security industries around the world, seems set to play an even larger role in the UK’s crisis-ridden National Health System (NHS).

The Central Bank of Nigeria is undeterred. To deepen its drive to “entrench a cashless economy” and boost take-up of the eNaira, it is launching a demonetization process not too dissimilar from India’s.

Gauidó has long outlived his usefulness. Now, he and the “interim” government he fronts are an obstacle in the way of reopening Venezuela’s oil market to US oil majors.

Following a string of scandals, bad investments and woeful risk management, Switzerland’s second largest bank, Credit Suisse, is close to the edge.

Until recently Washington’s closest ally/client state in South America, Colombia is now under new management. And that management has a different perception of US influence in Latin America and the wider world.

Enel is one of 70 energy companies in Italy that could end up needing a state-guaranteed credit line, as derivative hedges blow out. Which is likely to place even further pressure on the finances of Europe’s most indebted large economy.