Category: Credit Crisis 2009
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Subprime Eastern Europe to Bankrupt Western European Banks / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2009
The long ticking time bomb of Eastern European debt is starting to explode with an even greater inevitability as that of subprime mortgages exploding in the United States, as at least in the United States the determining factor of whether or not the mortgage market would go bust is the state of the US housing market. With Eastern Europe the big and obvious question mark that has been raised many times long before the housing markets peaked and the stock markets crashed was the degree of borrowing by Eastern Europeans in foreign currencies that set the borrowers up for the ticking currency time bomb when the forex trends reversed against them would send the value of debts soaring in the domestic currencies thus pushing for example the housing borrowers into negative equity WITHOUT A FALL IN HOUSE PRICES.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Financial Crisis Big Picture: What has the Government Response Been? / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
In the first part of this article we examined how we got ourselves into this economic mess and how our “leaders” and “experts” missed so many warning signs. In this second of 3 parts we will examine what the government response has been.
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Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Financial Institutions Toxic Securities - Wanted: Market Based Prices / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2009
Shaken insurance giant AIG has argued that fair value accounting is what got the world into this financial crisis. This debate is flaring up once again as it becomes ever more apparent that many of the world's largest banks would be insolvent if they priced their securities at “fair” market prices.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Financial Crisis Big Picture: How Did We Get Here? / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
As the environmental, financial, and economic situation continues to deteriorate around us, we need to step back and take a look at the big picture. We need to see how we ended up in this economic mess, what the government response has been, and what we can do to climb out of this hole that we have collectively dug ourselves into. We are starting to see that our perceived prosperity has really been an illusion and was totally unsustainable.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, March 02, 2009
Financial Crisis Conspiracy Theory / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
Peter Chamberlain writes: Sermon From The Corporate Church - Hurricane winds pound at the gates of Fortress America and our leaders send out the order for more straw and sand to pound into the widening cracks. The harder the winds of change blow the more apparent it becomes that our “leaders” cannot lead, when they themselves await orders from above. As our house of cards flies apart at the seams, the master planners send their minions scrambling to salvage their disintegrating investments, worrying only about their “property,” caring less about the human life that is huddled in fear within.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Credit Crisis Solution: Social Credit / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
"Banking and credit are too important a business for citizens and politicians to be ignorant of. Upon its fair and equitable administration rests the very existence and future of our society".Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, February 27, 2009
The Great Financial Crisis / Economics / Credit Crisis 2009
Interview of John Bellamy Foster - John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He is the coauthor with Fred Magdoff of The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences, recently published by Monthly Review Press.
MW :Do you think that the American people have been misled into believing that the current financial crisis is the result of subprime loans and toxic assets? Aren't these merely the symptoms of a deeper problem; financialization? Can you explain financialization and how the economy became more and more detached from productive activity and more and more dependent on the accumulation of paper wealth?
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Thursday, February 26, 2009
How Credit Unions Survived the Crash of Casino Capitalism / Economics / Credit Crisis 2009
Ralph Nader writes: While the reckless giant banks are shattering like an over-heated glacier day by day, the nation?s credit unions are a relative island of calm largely apart from the vortex of casino capitalism.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Credit Default Swaps: How Fleas Kill A Dog / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2009
I‘ve been on the lookout for an article with a concise description of the ongoing saga of the Credit Default Swaps (CDS) markets to pass along to readers and I have found a nice, simple one on the Guardian UK website. This article is written at a level any newbie can understand yet provides current news any veteran would appreciate. As a bonus, it conveys, once again, the scale of the debt bubble the world economy is trying to swallow which is now widely recognized as massive.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Bernanke Admits Fed Is Clueless on Credit Collapse and Zombie Banks / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
Inquiring minds are asking "To what extent is the Fed is in the dark?" Amazingly Bernanke answered that question today in Congress with complete candor. All you need to know is how to translate his statements. Please consider Bernanke tells Congress Fed knows what it is doing .Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Global Financial Crisis and the Statue of the Three Lies / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2009
Canada 's Globe and Mail newspaper reporter, Heather Scoffield, interviewed renowned Harvard Economist Niall Ferguson for an article published Feb. 23, 2009 titled, There Will Be Blood . In the interview Ferguson states,
The global crisis is far from over, has only just begun, and Canada is no exception.
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Tuesday, February 24, 2009
United States Government Saving Capitalism From Itself / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
This week I came across two items that I think are worthy of being in Outside the Box, so I am going to give you both. The first is an essay by good friend Paul McCulley, Managing Director of PIMCO, called "Saving Capitalist Banking from Itself." The second is a recent speech by Paul Volker, former Fed Chairman and a (hopefully very) influential member of President Obama's economic advisory team. This speech is a must read. Taken together they provide a cautionary tale of what the world of banking will need to look like when we get to the end of the process. This OTB is a little longer than most, but I think it is important reading. If you don't know where we are headed, it is hard to imagine the journey.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, February 23, 2009
Super-Investor George Soros Predicts Financial Crisis Worst Yet to Come / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2009
William Patalon III writes: Renowned investor George Soros said Friday the world financial system has effectively disintegrated , and there's no near-term bottom to this financial crisis in sight. Speaking at a dinner at Columbia University, Soros actually compared the current situation to the breakup of the Soviet Union, and said that the whipsaw effects of the crisis are actually more severe than the Great Depression.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, February 23, 2009
Debt Addiction Depression Destruction / Economics / Credit Crisis 2009
Modern economies were created by the collusion of bankers and government. The banks are now collapsing and only the governments are left. It's like watching a two legged man trying to stand on his one remaining leg. How long will he remain upright and in what direction will he fall?
Recently on the Oprah Winfrey Show, one of the most popular TV programs in America , a family of five—a father, mother, their two teenage sons and a baby—were featured because all, except for the baby, were addicted to heroin.
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Saturday, February 21, 2009
ECB Dithers as Eastern Europe Bad Debts to Bankrupt European Banks / Economics / Credit Crisis 2009
- The Risk in Europe
- While Rome Burns
- The Euro Back to Parity? Really?
- Back to the Basics
- Living in Paradise
- The 20-Year Horizon
- If I Had a Hammer
When I sit down each week to write, I essentially do what I did nine years ago when I started writing this letter. I write to you, as an individual. I don't think of a large group of people, just a simple letter to a friend. It is only half a joke that this letter is written to my one million closest friends. That is the way I think of it.
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Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Next Wave of Banking Crisis to Come from Eastern Europe / Economics / Credit Crisis 2009
European banks face an entirely new wave of losses in coming months not yet calculated in any government bank rescue aid to date. Unlike the losses of US banks which derive initially from their exposures to low-quality sub-prime real estate and other securitized lending, the problems of western European banks, most especially in Austria, Sweden and perhaps Switzerland arise from the massive volumes of loans they made during the 2002-2007 period of extreme low international interest rates to clients in eastern European countries.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Gold Climbs as Global Economic Catastrophe Looms / Economics / Credit Crisis 2009
Last week, when Congress passed its $787 billion stimulus package, the size of the plan caused many observers to forget the water that has already passed under the bridge. Fewer still are wondering what havoc will erupt when all this liquidity eventually washes ashore.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, February 16, 2009
Bankrupt Britain: Europe Blames America While U.K Warned of Bankruptcy / Economics / Credit Crisis 2009
Niall Ferguson, respected economic historian, warns of other European countries facing an Iceland style bankruptcy . 'Switzerland is first in line… and Britain is not far behind ,' he says.
While many politicians in Europe like to shift the blame for the credit crisis to the U.S. Niall points out that excessive lending and leveraging was much more endemic in countries such as Germany and the U.K.
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Monday, February 16, 2009
US, UK, Eurozone Banks Face Collapse: Global Banking System Insolvent / Economics / Credit Crisis 2009
With all the hype from various US dollar bears about the crisis with US banks, few on this side of the Atlantic are paying any attention to happenings in Europe.For those who look, a strong case can be made that European banks are as bad off if not much worse off than their US counterparts.
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Monday, February 16, 2009
When Banks Are Inflexible, How Does Your Company Survive the Credit Crunch? / Companies / Credit Crisis 2009
How do companies survive the uncertain future when they have to assume that Banks will remain inflexible, at least in the short term? What alternative strategies are available? This article explores some options.Read full article... Read full article...