I would imagine that some EU policymakers are not happy right now. We’ve put up links in Links from various European media outlets yesterday and today which describe the unusual lengths (by modern geopolitical standards) that Obama took to push Eurozone leaders to agree on a bailout package last weekend. Obama reportedly depicted the financial […]
Read more...By Richard Smith, a London-based capital markets IT consultant Tracking the changes to the US financial reform package in minute detail would drive you nuts. But there is a quick and dirty alternative: simply compare the Geithner/Summers trailer from July ’09 with the latest one (Geithner, solo, last week, Thursday 6th May, 2010). They each […]
Read more...In March, the EU announced plans to restrict the operations of private equity funds. This is far from surprising, since US and UK firms have exhibited a nasty propensity to lever up firms, pull out a lot in the way of special dividends, and too often overdo the cash extraction and leave a bankrupt hulk […]
Read more...Just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you. And just because skepticism of Eurozone salvage operations is warranted does not mean that all of the criticisms should be taken at face value. Andrew Dittmer pointed out a speech he correctly deemed to be “surprising” by Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, […]
Read more...By Glenn Stehle, an engineer who began working in the oil industry in 1974. After a two-year stint with Cities Service Oil Company, he worked for two years for Henry Engineering, a petroleum engineering consulting firm. Upon leaving Henry Engineering he worked as an independent engineering consultant in all facets of the oil and gas […]
Read more...Frank Partnoy, derivatives salesman turned law professor, took an ill fated star turn in the Financial Times today. In a comment titled, “Goldman is wrong target for official censure,” he writes (among other things): “Goldman is not to blame for the financial crisis,” a straw man if I ever saw one. I hate to say […]
Read more...By Richard Alford, a former economist at the New York Fed. Since then, he has worked in the financial industry as a trading floor economist and strategist on both the sell side and the buy side. The EU, IMF and friends have rolled out the shock-and-awe bailout package for Greece and the Euro. This package […]
Read more...The first part of this two part series proved to be very popular among blog readers, given the level of comments, so I thought I’d feature the second part, which was posted by Real News Networks on Monday. Enjoy!
Read more...Tom Ferguson, professor of political science professor at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, is in fine form here. Enjoy!
Read more...The EU announced a €750 billion salvage operation, funds to shore up economies in economic difficulty, with the program consisting of €440 billion of loans from eurozone nations, €60 billion from an EU emergency fund, and €250 billion from the IMF. There are several layers of complicating factors, however. The first is that the German […]
Read more...By John Ryskamp, an attorney and author of The Eminent Domain Revolt One must work to get behind the import of an enabling act, because such an act is invariably, and intentionally, short and vague. It intends to grant much, and to tell little. This is certainly true of the three acts compared here: the […]
Read more...The defenders of the economic orthodoxy have gotten much more shrill of late. In a perverse way, this is probably a positive sign: they might be feeling a tad worried that they are starting to lose their hold over consensus reality. But given how quick various media outlets are to pick up and amplify their […]
Read more...By Barry Eichengreen, from VoxEU: EU and IMF efforts to rescue Greece have failed to stabilise Europe’s financial markets. Now there are significant concerns about Spain and Portugal’s financial circumstances. This column says Europe needs to wake up, face the facts, and take action. It outlines what the IMF, ECB, and Eurozone members need to […]
Read more...The only moderate reduction in market havoc on Friday has all eyes on the European officialdom. Will they mount a credible enough plan over the weekend to buy them a bit of breathing room so they can come up a better salvage operation for the euro experiment? The odds are against both steps in the […]
Read more...By Marshall Auerback, a fund manager and investment strategist who writes for New Deal 2.0. Many market analysts, commentators and economists claim to be having a hard time finding a metric in which the US is in better financial shape than Greece. Ken Rogoff, for example, recently warned that a Greek default would usher in […]
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