Category: Credit Crisis 2008
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Tuesday, February 10, 2009
$550 Billion Electronic Run On U.S. Banks Nearly Triggered Financial Collapse / Politics / Credit Crisis 2008
At 2 minutes, 20 seconds into this C-Span video clip, Rep. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania explains how the Federal Reserve told Congress members about a "tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the United States, to the tune of $550 billion dollars." According to Kanjorski, this electronic transfer occurred over the period of an hour and threatened a further $5 trillion to be drawn out triggering a total collapse of the Financial System, which prompted Hank Paulson's emergency $700 billion TARP bailout action.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
How Deregulation Fueled the Financial Crisis / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
Shah Gilani writes: No one person is responsible for the credit crisis, the failure of investment banks, the insolvency of commercial banks world-wide, the implosion of the world's stock markets, or for leading us to the precipice of another great depression.
The truth is there were many.
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Sunday, January 11, 2009
4-Point Survival Guide for Turning Personal Financial Crisis into Opportunity / Personal_Finance / Credit Crisis 2008
The current financial crisis is driving the world into a global recession. There is no job security anymore. Especially in times of financial crisis you need to be independent, become the CEO of your life and redefine yourself in order to create and attract new creative opportunities. This can be realized successfully according to an innovative four-stage authentic personal branding model, that will be introduced in this article, based on the bestselling book “Authentic Personal Branding:Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Zero Interest Rate Policy and the Liquidity Trap / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2008
Welcome to the Weekly Report (published 4 Jan 09). I had a nice break over Christmas and the New Year, having spent a week in Norway skiing enjoying guaranteed snow and a good exchange rate to Sterling, thus avoiding the horrible reality of a less than 1:1 Sterling/Euro tourist rate. Sometimes all this macro-econobabble has its uses.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, January 02, 2009
An Unappy New Year for the Financial Markets / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
Another forgotten anniversary that haunts the nation is the re-establishment of the gold standard in the United States by the Roosevelt administration on January 1, 1934. What? -- you may ask incredulously. Roosevelt re-introducing the gold standard in the United States? You had better believe it. That's exactly what he did. He fixed the statutory price of gold at $35 per ounce 75 years ago. This price was observed until 1971 as it was also incorporated in several international treaties, and confirmed by the solemn promises of several presidents following Roosevelt. It is a great pity that Roosevelt-worshippers frown upon the idea of following the leader. They should demand a return to the gold standard now, 75 years after Roosevelt showed the way out from the economic quagmire.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Foundations of the Financial Crisis / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
This week I have a special Outside the Box for you. My long-time friend Doug Casey wrote a very prescient piece back in 1997. He has updated it somewhat for today's times. The critical part is a summary of the work of Richard Strauss and (friend) John Howe and their book The Fourth Turning, which I consider one of the more important and prescient (that word again) books of the last 25 years. (Amazon.com). It should still be read today. It is seminal to understanding the times we live in.
Doug summarized the book and makes some observations based on that understanding, many of which turned out to be true and some of which may well be in out future. I think you will find this to be very useful and enlightening if you are not familiar with their work, and a great review if you are.
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Sunday, December 28, 2008
State Budget Gimmicks Can't Solve Banking Crisis / Politics / Credit Crisis 2008
Citing ethical concerns, as if Illinois had any, a Coveted Casino License went to lowest bidder who plans to build in the city of Des Plaines.Illinois gambling regulators on Monday chose the lowest bidder among three finalists for the state's only unused casino license, saying the company that plans to build in Des Plaines didn't raise the ethical concerns posed by finalists for Waukegan and Rosemont.
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Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Credit Crisis Watch: Credit Market Freeze Continues to Thaw / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2008
Are the various central bank liquidity facilities and capital injections having the desired effect of unclogging credit markets and restoring confidence in the world's financial system? This is precisely what the “Credit Crisis Watch” is all about – a regular review of a number of measures in order to ascertain to what extent the thawing of credit markets is under way.
Updating the report at this time is also to gauge the credit markets' reaction to the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) announcement of a week ago about a Fed funds rate cut and specific actions that would move the Fed further towards a quantitative easing approach to monetary policy. (Also see my “ Words from the Wise ” review.)
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Monday, December 22, 2008
Bank of England's Failure at Handling of the Financial Crisis / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2008
Having watched and written about the increasing failure of the Bank of England to act throughout the crisis that broke way back in September 2007 as the run on Northern Rock Bank began, having always acted too little too late that was most recently evident during the summer of 2008 when the BoE was paralysed by the fear of inflation into a state of inaction on interest rates, the MPC members basically sat twiddling their thumbs whilst the economy burned. It took until a frustrated Gordon Brown effectively took away control of Monetary policy from the BoE on the eve of financial armageddon on 8th of October when he announced the first 0.5% cut in interest rates at the Prime Ministers question time despatch box.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Panorama: The Year Britain's Credit Bubble Burst / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2008
Happy Christmas? For many people the holiday season is more likely to be a fearful one as they worry about their finances and job security after a year of global economic turbulence.
The last 12 months have seen house prices tumble and repossessions rise, with banks needing billion-pound bailouts. Such has been the speed of the economic crisis that the notion of the credit crunch has been replaced by the very real prospect of a recession.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Credit Collapse Financial Market Impacts and Implications / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
The Big, the Bull, and the Bankers - Over the last few years, in my search to understand how we arrived at this historic juncture, I have been confronted with how ignorant the general public is regarding the history of money. But, after five years of researching and writing about this period, I still find it difficult to understand the day-to-day machinations of things like Collateral Debt Obligations, Credit Default Swaps, and Currency Swaps. So, the public's confusion is understandable. Bundling hundreds of debt products and layering them one on top of other, as collateral, is just too complex. But, I am not alone in this.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, December 18, 2008
The Free Market has Failed, and Officialdom is Perpetuating that Failure / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
Ever since the two Bear Stearns hedge funds defaulted 17 months ago triggering a global financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has been busy putting out one fire after another. Fed chief Ben Bernanke has slashed interest rates to .25 percent, handed out billions in emergency funding to teetering insurance companies and mortgage lenders, and provided $8.3 trillion in loan guarantees to keep the financial system from collapsing.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Ratings Agencies Greed and Fraud Magnified Credit Crisis / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
Shah Gilani writes: Underlying the credit crisis gripping the U.S. and world economies is a crisis of confidence. Blame has been laid at the feet of the U.S. Federal Reserve, and an investment bankers' brew of toxic financial products. Ultimately, however, it was the supposedly trustworthy rating agencies that got everyone to drink the poisoned Kool-Aid.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Financial World Turned Upside Down– A Changing of the Guard? / Economics / Credit Crisis 2008
Revolutionary war history buffs may recall that as Lord Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 his band – the Buckinghamshire Light Infantry - played “The world turned upside down”. Nothing could be a more apt metaphor for the global financial markets in the latter half of 2008. The established economic orthodoxies have been progressively jettisoned as the global markets entered an unprecedented phase of meltdown and fear drove out greed as the overriding driving force.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, December 15, 2008
The Financial Bomb in your Christmas Stockings / Economics / Credit Crisis 2008
Misplaced fears are the most dangerous of all - The Muslim terrorists of Mumbai are not our greatest threat nor will they cause the greatest suffering in the days ahead. That which will cause the greatest grief is the banker's system of credit-based paper money, a house of cards now in flames and about to burn all inside who still believe it to be shelter instead of a charnel house.
Those who have attended Professor Antal E. Fekete's Gold Standard University Live (GSUL) are not found around corporate watering holes discussing stock tips. Although aware of the markets, those in attendance have their focus on the system itself, on what caused its problems and what can be done to correct it.
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Monday, December 15, 2008
Bailout for the People: “The Cook Plan” / Politics / Credit Crisis 2008
Prepared for the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network Annual Conference New York , N.Y. , February 27-March 1, 2009 Submitted by Richard C. Cook December 12, 2008 - This system is not free enterprise, and it is not capitalism. It is a cancer that is destroying the world.
Isn't it Finally Time to Enact a Basic Income Guarantee?
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Saturday, December 13, 2008
Free Money with that Credit Default Swap? / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2008
- Things That Should Not Be
- I'll Pay You to Hold My Cash
- Pushing on a String
- Free Money with that Credit Default Swap?
- Oil Does a Strange Contango Dance
- The Tragedy of Bernie Madoff
There are things in today's markets that are simply astounding. They should not exist, yet they do. Why should US bills trade at negative interest? How can oil be trading at all-time highs in terms of spreads over the next year? Bank debt and bonds are trading at discounts not to be believed. Want some free money? I show you a trade that gives you (almost) just that. Fed funds at zero? Are we starting to push on a string? We'll cover all this and more in this week's letter.
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Friday, December 12, 2008
Conquer the Crash, Protect Yourself From the Financial Crisis / Personal_Finance / Credit Crisis 2008
Elliott Wave International (EWI), the world's largest market forecasting firm, has just released a free 15-page report featuring 5 chapters from Bob Prechter's New York Times bestseller, Conquer the Crash: You Can Survive and Prosper in a Deflationary Depression.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
How to Invest in this Global Credit Crisis / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
Arnold Bock writes: Virtually all investors large or small, institutional or private, sophisticated or clueless have managed to weather the current tsunami in the financial markets. If they are honest, however, most would admit to having taken at least a haircut and a shave, if not a bath, from late September 2008 to the present.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Credit Crisis Watch- Banking Sector Distrust Remains High / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2008
In order to gauge the progress being made to unclog credit markets and restore confidence in the world's financial system, I monitor a range of financial spreads and other measures. By perusing these, as summarised in this “Credit Crisis Watch” review, one can ascertain to what extent the various central bank liquidity facilities and capital injections are having the desired effect.
First up is the LIBOR rate. This is the interest rate that banks charge each other for one-month, three-month, six-month and one-year loans. LIBOR is an acronym for “London InterBank Offered Rate” and is the rate charged by London banks, and which is then published and used as the benchmark for banks' rates around the world.
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