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...Category Archives: Banking industry
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...Why Should Banks be the Only Ones with Accounts at the Fed?
Should everyone with a Social Security number have an account at the Fed?
Read more...The Skunk Party Manifesto
The best political system that money can buy is doing a great job for its customers and a lousy job for the rest of us.
Read more...Ilargi: QE, The People And The Damage Done
A report issued by McKinsey Global Institute last week on the real world impact of QE warrants more scrutiny than it has gotten so far.
Read more...Catalan Politician Does Unthinkable, Threatens Spain’s Creditors
By Don Quijones, a freelance writer and translator based in Barcelona, Spain. His blog, Raging Bull-Shit, is a modest attempt to challenge some of the wishful thinking and scrub away the lathers of soft soap peddled by our political and business leaders and their loyal mainstream media. Cross posted from Testosterone Pit
There are certain things politicians should never do – assuming, that is, they want to hold on to their jobs. Using the dirty “s” word (sovereignty) for example, is a definite no-no. Also high up on the list of “don’t dos” is threatening the interests of foreign creditors and bondholders.
Yet this is precisely what Oriol Junqueras, the firebrand leader of Esquerra Republicana Catalana (ERC), the second largest party in Catalonia’s government coalition, did last week
Read more...David Dayen: IRS Confirms that $12 Billion in “Mortgage Relief” in National Mortgage Settlement Completely Worthless
The IRS settles something I noticed a while ago and has now been finally confirmed. In short: big banks who robbed homes from Americans got a penalty that entailed, quite literally, giving homeowners worthless allowances.
The issue concerns the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, which expires at the end of the year. After December 31, all mortgage relief that involves debt forgiveness of any kind will be taxable to the borrower. This affects principal reductions, of course, but also short sales, with the idea being that this involves the bank “forgiving” the difference between the total owed on the mortgage and the price of the short sale. There are hardships exemptions to this but they involve the functional equivalent of bankruptcy – you have to prove that your total liabilities exceed your total assets.
Read more...Chronicles of a European Winter: “There is a Difference Between Saying Greeks Should Live With Less and Saying Greeks Should Live With Nothing”
This is the first segment of an ongoing project, Eurowinter, to record the human toll of austerity policies in Europe. It focuses on the suffering Greece, as told by Greeks themselves.
Read more...CFTC’s Bart Chilton Takes it to the (Position) Limits One More Time
Yves here. This post is important not simply because it describes where the fight over position limits stands and why it’s important, but it also gives some insight into regulator processes. It makes clear how even as few as two well placed officials, Bart Chilton and Gary Gensler, did a great deal to hold the line against predatory large financial firms. It also shows how hard regulators have to fight to do their job.
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