Banks Start Volcker Rule Blame Game
Nothing like being able to use something in the headlines to hide your real behavior. And even better if you can get a banking stalwart columnist to run PR for you.
Read more...Category Archives: Banking industry
Michael Hudson: Trade Advantage Replaced by Rent Extraction
An interview with Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, on the Renegade Economists radio/podcast
Read more...JP Morgan, Not Satisfied with Profitable WaMu Acquisition, Sues FDIC to Extract More
If you are Jamie Dimon, a good deal is apparently never good enough.
Read more...Wolf Richter: Fear And Trembling In Muni Land
Municipal bond investors, a conservative bunch who want to avoid rollercoaster rides and cliffhangers, are getting frazzled. And they’re bailing out of muni bond funds at record rate, while they still can without losing their shirts.
Read more...Ragnarok – Iceland and the ‘Doom of the Gods’
Iceland is widely portrayed as a post-bubble success story, but the reality is more conplex.
Read more...The Eurozone: If Only It Were the 1930s
Yves here. This post looks at the strictures of the Eurozone (debt to GDP and deficit limits) and not surprisingly concludes that the supposedly independent ECB is making matters worse that a more “political,” as in growth oriented one, would. But depicting central bank independence as detrimental is a novel and important argument.
Read more...Volcker Rule: The Devil’s in the Unimpressive Enforcement Details
If you managed to be late to the Volcker Rule party, you can learn a great deal of what you’d need to know via the revealing contrast between two reasonably detailed accounts, one at Huffington Post by Shahien Nasiripour, the other by Matt Levine at Bloomberg. If you didn’t know better, you’d wonder if they were talking about the same rule.
Read more...Capital Inflows and Booms in Asset Prices
Yves here. This is a tidy and useful addition to the literature on how high levels of international capital flows generate financial instability.
Read more...Ilargi: Everything’s Fine In A Parallel Universe
Last week, I was reading parts of a report issued by Japanese investment bank Nomura, which started out saying that the “Global Financial Crisis” is over. If I lay out a statement like that side by side with a lot of other things I see, I can only conclude that Nomura doesn’t reside in the same universe I do.
Read more...Elizabeth Warren Attacks Beltway Powerhouse Third Way as Fronting for Wall Street
Wow, the gloves are finally coming off.
Read more...New Zealand’s Latest Dodgy Export: Why FX Investors Should be Wary of Software Sold by Irish Company Paymark Autotrader
A dubious FX trading software operation closes down in New Zealand and sets up shop in Ireland.
Read more...Ian Fraser: The “Financial Terrorism” of Royal Bank of Scotland
Yves here. This story of institutionalized pilferage of customer accounts hasn’t gotten the attention it warrants in the US. Even if you are pretty jaded about bank chicanery, I suspect you’ll find this account falls in the category of “no matter how bad you think it is, it’s worse.” And in this case, the victims aren’t the usual hapless retail customers, but businesses.
Read more...Michael Hoexter: Loathsome Wall Street Deficit Hysterics: ‘Blame the Old and Sick, Not Us’ – Part 2
While Pete Peterson and Bob Rubin have couched their campaign against Social Security and Medicare in the moral vestments of “fiscal responsibility”, they gloss over the macroeconomic financial reality of government and the requirement for deficit spending to maintain growth of the national and world economies. The moral fervor that they apply is inapplicable to government programs: while it may seem real to them or the gullible politicians they influence, the moral outrage they hope to play on is based on false and inhumane premises.
Read more...Speculation About Whether the Fed Manipulates the Stock Market Becoming More Mainstream
Even during the pre-Lehman days of the financial crisis (yes, Virginia, there were three acute episodes before the Big One), blogs and professional investors in my various e-mail conversations would discuss the idea that the Fed had a “plunge protection team” which would intervene to stem market routs.
Read more...How a British Carbon Credit Pusher Got a Listing on a Danish Stock Exchange, Brokered by a New Zealand Financial Company Run by an Australian Residing in Switzerland
How a British Carbon Credit Pusher Got a Listing on a Danish Stock Exchange, Brokered by a New Zealand Financial Company Run by an Australian Residing in Switzerland
Read more...