Category: Credit Crisis 2010
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Homeowners Rebellion against Wall Street, Axing the Bankers Money Tree / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Ellen_Brown
Over 62 million mortgages are now held in the name of MERS, an electronic recording system devised by and for the convenience of the mortgage industry. A California bankruptcy court, following landmark cases in other jurisdictions, recently held that this electronic shortcut breaks the chain of title, voiding foreclosure. The logical result could be 62 million homes that are foreclosure-proof.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Bankster's Business As Usual as Banks Settle Fraud Charges / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Danny_Schechter
Another day, another bank in the news -- with the settlement blues.
Now, Barclays is coughing up $298 million for violating a US Trade law. A Judge is still deliberating on a settlement that may cost Citi $70-$100 million for misleading investors about $40 billion in sleazy subprime holdings .
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Monday, August 09, 2010
Who Will Investigate the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission? / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Janet_Tavakoli
Janet Tavakoli of Tavakoli Structured Finance tells what she thinks of recent fines the SEC has imposed on Wall Street giants and where she would like future investigations take place.
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Thursday, August 05, 2010
Rating Agency Feud: S&P vs. Dagong…For Now / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Dian_L_Chu
It all started almost a month ago when Dagong, the largest credit rating agency in China, took on S&P, Moody’s and Fitch. Dagong issued its first international sovereign risk report on July 11 by giving 27 countries out of the 50 a markedly different rating than the Western big three.
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Thursday, August 05, 2010
Escaping the Sovereign Debt Trap, The Commonwealth Bank of Australia Remarkable Model / Economics / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Ellen_Brown
The current credit crisis is basically a capital crisis: at a time when banks are already short of the capital needed to back their loans, capital requirements are being raised. Nearly a century ago, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia demonstrated that banks do not actually need capital to make loans – so long as their credit is backed by the government. Denison Miller, the Bank’s first Governor, was fond of saying that the Bank did not need capital because “it is backed by the entire wealth and credit of the whole of Australia.” With nothing but this national credit power, the Commonwealth Bank funded both massive infrastructure projects and the country’s participation in World War I.
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Lloyds TSB £1.6 Billion Tax Payer Funded Profits / Companies / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Eric Daniel's and the rest of the management at Lloyds TSB are patting themselves on the back for having turned last years £4 billion loss into a £1.6 billion profit for the first half of this year. However the whole of LLoyds profits and that of the other reporting banks such as RBS, and Northern Rock are as a consequence of the tax payer bailouts without who's continuing support Lloyds TSB and the other banks would still be bankrupt today.
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Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Can the Fed Successfully Exit Liquidity Flood Policies ? / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2010
By: David_Howden
The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis recently interviewed macroeconomist Robert Hall for the June issue of its quarterly magazine, The Region. His words on the Federal Reserve's ability to enact an exit strategy to unwind its unconventional policies were clear and sure: "There are two branches to the exit strategy: There's paying interest on reserves, and there's reducing reserves back to normal levels. They're both completely safe, so it's a nonissue."
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
European Banking Stress Test: Much Ado about Nothing / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Claus_Vogt
On Friday the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) revealed the results of its banking sector stress test. The objective of the test, in the CEBS’s dry words, was to “provide policy information for assessing the resilience of the EU banking system to possible adverse economic developments and to assess the ability of banks ( … ) to absorb possible shocks on credit and market risks, including sovereign risks.”
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Will China Grab the Credit-Rating Business? / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Money_Morning
Martin Hutchinson writes:
There's a new name in the credit-rating-agency business these days: It's Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. Ltd., and this Beijing-backed business is China's bid for a spot in the global-credit-rating oligopoly.
And Dagong's Chairman Guan Jianzhong doesn't think much of his long-established U.S. competitors.
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Friday, July 23, 2010
European Bank Stress Test Politicians Desperate to hide the Truth of Insolvent Banking System / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The long waited stress test of the 91 of Europe's largest Banks resulted in just 7 of the smaller regional banks failing the test including one from Germany and Greece, and five in Spain, that require capital injections of just Euros 3.5 billion, which is a drop in the ocean when compared against PIGS sovereign debt of Euros 1.2 trillion, but off course the so called stress test FAILED to test for sovereign debt default.
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Friday, July 23, 2010
Mortgage Debt … Credit Card Debt … Corporate Debt — It’s all Shrinking! / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Mike_Larson
I used to love those Wendy’s commercials in the 1980s. You know, the ones that mocked the burger patties at competing restaurants with the catchphrase “Where’s the beef?”
Today, I can’t help but ask a similar question about the U.S. economy. Namely: “Where’s the credit?”
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Friday, July 23, 2010
Hungary Could Trigger Next Sovereign Debt and Credit Crisis Event / Economics / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Money_Morning
Jack Barnes writes: The biggest financial news story out of the Europe this summer is getting very little play in the U.S. mainstream press. However, it has the potential to torpedo the European Union (EU), and has disastrous implications for borrowing costs worldwide.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
U.S. Credit Firms Tell Clients Not To Use Their Ratings? / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Dian_L_Chu
In an article dated July 12, I first reported that Dagong International Credit Rating Co., the largest credit rating agency of China, stripped the the U.S. and some other western nations of the AAA ratings given by its big three Western counterparts. Dagong also accused its Western rivals of not properly disclosing the repayment risk and causing the global financial crisis and current debt crisis in Europe.
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Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Switzerland Under Siege, Free Markets May Yet Save the Swiss Franc / Currencies / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Axel_Merk
Efforts are underway to undermine Switzerland’s rock solid reputation as a safe haven. The alpine nation, famous for its readiness against enemies with citizens storing military assault rifles at their homes, is under attack. The attack, however, comes from one of their own, the guardian of the Swiss franc: the Swiss National Bank (SNB). In any other country, a central bank may have the power to derail the currency; in Switzerland, however, efforts to undermine the franc may be more appropriately characterized by a Don Quixotian battle by a lone warrior, a warrior armed with a license to print money.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
The E.U. Banking System Stress Test Fraud / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Mike_Whitney
The EU banking system is in big trouble. Many of the Union's largest banks are sitting on hundreds of billions of euros in dodgy sovereign bonds and non performing real estate loans. But writing down their losses will deplete their capital and force them to restructure their debt. So the banks are concealing their losses through accounting sleight-of-hand and by borrowing money from the European Central Bank. This has helped to hide the rot at the heart of the system.
Friday, July 09, 2010
Banks Fairy Tale Stress Tests / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Mike_Larson
Of all the questionable bailout and backstop programs the government rolled out in the wake of the credit crisis, the whole “stress test” episode for the banks stands out the most.
The idea was that the Fed and Treasury would evaluate whether 19 major U.S. banks could survive a recession without a catastrophic erosion of their capital.
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Friday, July 09, 2010
Europe’s Banking Crisis: Latvia’s Third Option / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Michael_Hudson
As Europe’s banking crisis deepens, Greece’s and Spain’s fiscal crisis spreads throughout Europe and the US economy stalls, most discussions of how to stabilize national finances assume that only two options are available: “internal devaluation” – shrinking the economy by cutting public spending; or outright devaluation of the currency (for countries that have not yet joined the euro, such as Eastern Europe).
Saturday, July 03, 2010
U.S. Economy Falling Towards Another Credit Collapse? / Economics / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Bob_Chapman
The Fed says US unemployment is likely to stay high for a long time, and that justifies zero interest rates indefinitely.The June Chicago Purchasing Managers Index was 59.1 vs. 59.7 in May. The employment component rose to 54.2 from 49.2 in May. New orders fell to 59.1 from 62.7.
Homebuilder Lennar is cutting new home prices 15% as new orders fell 10%. KB Builders said new orders fell 23%, as new home sales fell 32%.
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Thursday, July 01, 2010
SULTANS OF SWAP: BP Collapse Potentially More Devastating than Lehman! / Companies / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Gordon_T_Long
As horrific as the gulf environmental catastrophe is, an even more intractable and cataclysmic disaster may be looming. The yet unknowable costs associated with clean-up, litigation and compensation damages due to arguably the world’s worst environmental tragedy, may be in the process of triggering a credit event by British Petroleum (BP) that will be equally devastating to global over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives. The potential contagion may eventually show that Lehman Bros. and Bear Stearns were simply early warning signals of the devastation lurking and continuing to grow unchecked in the $615T OTC Derivatives market.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Eurozone and U.S. LIBOR Interbank Interest Rates Divergence / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
A Tale of Two Cities - New York vs. Frankfurt - Chart 1 shows the recent behavior of the 3-month interbank loan rates in U.S. dollars and euros. Both in dollar and euro terms, these interest rates began drifting up in the second half of April as the Greek, Portugal and Spain (GPS) sovereign debt challenges came to the fore. If GPS were to default on its sovereign debt, this would have an adverse impact on some European banks. These potential losses for European banks caused interbank lending to "tighten up," thereby driving up interbank loan rates.