It appears that, to the extent Jamie Dimon’s “fortress balance sheet” claims are valid, some of strength results from taking liberties with customers in ways that even other big financial firms shun.
Read more...By Paul De Grauwe, Professor of international economics, University of Leuven, member of the Group of Economic Policy Analysis, advising the EU Commission President Manuel Barroso, and former member of the Belgian parliament. Cross posted from VoxEU
Among the questions still remaining since last week’s summit of European leaders is whether the new measures will stabilise government bond markets. This column’s answer is ‘no’.
Read more...The Obama Administration’s full-bore effort to push a bank-favoring mortgage “settlement” over the line earlier this year has led to a rearguard action that appears to have caught the mortgage industrial complex and its allies flatfooted.
Read more...In case it isn’t yet apparent to you, the unfolding scandal over manipulation of Libor and its Euro counterpart Euribor is a huge deal. Even though at this point, only Barclays, the UK bank that was first to settle, is in the hot lights, at least 16 other major financial players, which means pretty much everybody, is implicated.
Read more...By Satyajit Das, derivatives expert and the author of Extreme Money: The Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk (2011). Jointly posted with Roubini Global Economics
The Pavlovian response of financial markets to the European leaders’ summit of 28 and 29 June 2012 was remarkable. The frugal communiqué of 322 words fired the “animal spirits” of financial markets, which now believe that the European debt crisis has been “solved”. As comedian Robin Williams joked: “reality is just a crutch for people who can’t handle drugs.”
Read more...Yet more gems from New Zealand’s Company Register: the companies that specialize in scamming Americans
Read more...Although Dave Dayen already gave a well-deserved shellacking to a remarkable piece of bank PR masquerading as “insight” at Reuters, “Evidence suggests anti-foreclosure laws may backfire,” it merits longer-form treatment as a crude macedoine of anti-homeowner messaging.
Read more...So again, what did Dimon know when? Under the hot lights at the House Financial Services Committee, he repeatedly brushed off the losses on the failed Chief Investment Office trades as no biggie. Let us remind readers that the size of the CIO’s balance sheet would make it the 8th largest bank in the US and it was running half of JPM’s total risk exposures, so it’s hard to see the failure of oversight as something to be waived off. And now it turns out the losses are going to clock in at a much higher number than the $2 billion that Dimon kept repeating in the hearings.
Read more...It’s become oh-so-predictible that banks get at most “cost of doing business” punishments that they almost seem not worth noting. But that’s precisely why it’s important to keep tabs on them, to let the complicit authorities and the perps know that the public is not fooled, even it is not in a position to do anything about it…yet…
Even though the Libor/Euribor price-fixing scandal hasn’t gotten much attention in the US, this is a really big deal.
Read more...More perfumed offerings from the New Zealand Company Register
Read more...Yves here. Yanis just posted an interview with ABC (Australia’s BBC) which describes how Greece cannot be salvaged. Its fate will be determined at the eurozone level, and its possible outcomes range from bad to awful. You can watch the conversation here. Transcript below:
Read more...By Delusional Economics, who is horrified at the state of economic commentary in Australia and is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness.
It’s another week and another summit for Europe. The latest EU summit will be held in Brussels on Thursday and Friday and once again it is a ‘summit to end all summits’. Last Friday saw the leaders of the four largest Eurozone economies meet in Rome and the outcome was relatively positive:
Read more...John Dizard of the Financial Times gives an early warning of a potential flashpoint later in the year: that of the Fed’s currency swap lines.
Read more...I’m surprised it has taken this long for Someone Serious to make the argument set forth in a new article by Simon Johnson at Bloomberg, which in short form says “You are dreaming if you think a European financial crisis stays in Europe.”
Johnson somewhat undercuts the urgency and importance of his article by working from the assumption that the eurozone dissolves back into its earlier configuration of one currency per nation. Economists and analysts have discussed other scenarios, such as a exit by Greece, which has the potential to precipitate contagion in Portugal, Spain, and Italy; an exit by Germany; a split into more economically homogeneous sub-groups (most likely north v. south). And Bloomberg refrains from putting the real sizzler in the headline: Johnson considers JP Morgan to be vulnerable and explains why.
Read more...By Satyajit Das, derivatives expert and the author of Extreme Money: The Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk (2011)
Jonathan Fenby (2012) Tiger Head, Snake Tails: China Today, How It Got There and Where It is Heading
Robert Frank (2011) Who Repo’d My Jet: the manic millionaires, and why they’ll lead us to the next boom and bust
John Coates (2012) The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Risk Taking, Gut Feelings and the Biology of Boom and Bust
Personal – relating to an individual or what serves the interest of that individual. Personality – distinctive assemblage of qualities which defines an individual, frequently in modern life conflated with celebrity. These three books deal with the ‘personal’ and ‘personality’ in the financial world.
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