Bill Black: Question to Our Bank CEOs Who Are Criminals: “Have You No Sense of Decency”?
Lambert here: I couldn’t make up my mind whether there was any redundancy in the headline or not.
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Do Greece, the Troika, and the Eurogroup Actually Have a Deal?
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has a new article on Greece’s scramble to find the funds to meet it March IMF payments, which are €1.5b in total, with €300 due on Friday. Note that IMF payment dates aren’t as hard and fast as credit card due dates; the agency allows borrowers some leeway if they have a clear intent to pay.
Nevertheless, Evans-Pritchard’s most important observation may be the one at the close of his article:
Whatever piece of paper they signed in Brussels 10 days ago, the two sides are still talking past each other.
In other words, the two sides disagree profoundly as to what the memo means. And that may mean that in reality, there is no deal at all.
Read more...Greek Kolotumbas Increasing at Disconcerting Rate
I’m at risk of getting whiplash from watching the speed at which Greece is changing its position on key issues. And while I’d be delighted to be proven wrong, there are reasons to think this pattern does not bode well for the government’s ongoing negotiations.
Read more...New York’s Benjamin Lawksy and the SEC’s Kara Stein and Luis Aguilar Push for Tougher Sanctions Against Bank Executives
More regulators are getting serious about finding ways to hold individual bank executives responsible for misconduct.
Read more...Yellen Defies Congress, Defends Greenspanian General Counsel Scott Alvarez After Elizabeth Warren Grilling
Elizabeth Warren subjected Fed chairman Janet Yellen to one of her fiercest interrogations ever in Congressional hearings yesterday.
Read more...ECB and IMF to Greece: No Escaping the Austerity Hairshirt
We warned readers who are still keen to take the Syriza “Hope is coming” slogan as something more promising that a subconscious echo of the Obama 2008 “Hope and change” campaign, that the memo that Greece signed with the Eurogroup last week did not represent a victory or a lessening of austerity. The comments by the ECB and the IMF on the reform list from Greece submitted Monday confirmed our earlier readings, that austerity is still very much on in Greece.
Read more...Bill Black: HSBC CEO – My Pay Was so Outrageous I Had to Use Tax Havens to Hide it from My Peers
This tidbit from HSBC reveals a new low in the standards of banking, which given how low those already are, amounts to an accomplishment of sorts. Perhaps we should create a Stuart Gulliver Award for other instances of creative extreme seaminess. Nominees?
Read more...Mathew D. Rose: Greece – Dead Man Walking
Rose focuses on an issue that reader Swedish Lex and other have pointed out: the heavy-handed actions of Germany in the tempestuous negotiations between the Eurozone and Greece have wound up being a major own goal.
But the bigger issue that Rose raises is that last week’s ugly negotiations, in combination with the fiasco in Ukraine, is exposing Germany as a lousy hegemon, which he argues is producing a political crisis in Germany and fracture lines in Europe.
Read more...Troika Not Happy with Initial Draft of Greek Reforms; Eurogroup Reported Still in the Mix (Updated)
As most readers may know, Greece and the Eurogroup ministers agreed to a memorandum last week that would replace the bailout that expires on February 28 with a four-month deal that the memo stresses is in the same framework.
But as much as the memo language was agreed by the ministers, it is not yet a done deal. And it is already looking like we might have a wild ride among the negotiators today.
Read more...Two New Papers Say Big Finance Sectors Hurt Growth and Innovation
In a bit of synchronicity, two new papers confirm the long-held suspicion that Wall Street is sucking the life out of Main Street.
Read more...Obama Administration Throws Greece Under the Bus; ECB Leak Recommends Capital Controls; Greece Weighing Capitulation (Updated: Germany Rejects Greek Proposal)
Things are not going well for Greece. It appears Syriza has largely capitulated to the demands of the Troika.
Read more...Greek Government Faces Cash Crunch Next Week
Greece is facing a cash shortfall even sooner than expected.
Read more...ECB Could Pressure Greece by Refusing to Increase ELA (Update: Small Increase Approved)
The ECB seems to be keeping Greece on a short leash by approving only a small increase in the ELA.
Read more...Mathew D. Rose: Greece – It’s a Revolution, Stupid!
As Greece’s struggles to secure relief from impossible-to-pay-debt that served to prop up otherwise insolvent French and German banks, and to be permitted to implement measures to reduce distress and restore growth, more and more observers are recognizing that this is really a struggle over democratic self-control versus rule by an unaccountable technocracy with inflexible rules, using finance as their enforcement weapon. This speech in the European Parliament today by UKIP leader Neil Farage echoes some of the themes of Mathew Rose’s post. Rose also explains how the many Germans justify the counterproductive destruction of a society that they have turned into a vassal state.
Read more...Where are the “Progressive” Democrats on Loretta Lynch’s HSBC Money Laundering Wrist Slap?
Some Republican Senators are having a field day, and rightly so, over the fact that Obama’s attorney general nominee, Loretta Lynch, looks to have allowed bank giant HSBC, and more important, its executives and officers, off vastly too easy in a massive money-laundering and tax evasion scheme. And where are the inquisitive Democratic senators to be found?
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