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It's not easy being a billionaire - By Michael Johnson - 15 years ago
"Time, they would find, is a much more valuable commodity than money." -- Dr. Wachtel It's not easy being a billionaire By Michael Johnson April 2, 2008 Source BORDEAUX, France: ASeattle billionaire I once worked for ran into money trouble a couple of years ago when his business went sour. He had to sell his private island and get rid of his yacht (one of the worldby ProjectC - Project C
False ideology at the heart of the financial crisis - By George Soros - 15 years ago
By George Soros April 2 2008 Source The proposal from Hank Paulson, US Treasury secretary, for reorganising government regulation of financial institutions misses the point. We need new thinking, not a reshuffling of regulatory agencies. The Federal Reserve has long had authority to issue rules for the mortgage industry but failed to exercise it. For the past 25 years or so the financial autby ProjectC - Project C
Fear of unrest mounts as hunger spreads - By Javier Blas - 15 years ago
By Javier Blas in Addis Ababa Thursday Apr 3 2008 Source Rising food prices could spread social unrest across Africa after triggering riots in Niger, Senegal, Cameroon and Burkina Faso, African ministers and senior agriculture diplomats have warned. Kanayo Nwanze, the vice-president of the United Nations' International Fund for Agriculture, told a conference in Ethiopia that food rioby ProjectC - Project C
German Banks Could Hemorrhage 70 Billion Euros - Der Spiegel - 15 years ago
Der Spiegel March 28, 2008 Source The fallout in Germany from exposure to America's subprime crisis may turn out to be far bigger than previously feared. One major newspaper is putting estimated losses at a whopping 70 billion euros, while a prominent politician warns that the US recession has already arrived in Germany. German banking executives fear the current financial crisis (moby ProjectC - Project C
(USA) Upscale - By Jim Kunstler - 15 years ago
By Jim Kunstler March 31, 2008 Source Things continue to slip, slide, and shift strangely Out There. Last Wednesday, a bunch of peeved mortgagees protesting government favoritism in the Bear Stearns case entered the lobby of the company's (soon-to-be-former) headquarters building in midtown Manhattan. While it might not seem like much, I view the symbolic "penetration&by ProjectC - Project C
USA 2008: The Great Depression - By David Usborne - 15 years ago
"...the U.K.'s Independent, "USA 2008: The Great Depression," is somewhat overblown -- even to me, the author of Financial Armageddon --... Maybe it's an April Fools' Day joke? Then again, maybe not." -- Michael J. Panzner, Not a Joke? March 31, 2008 USA 2008: The Great Depression Food stamps are the symbol of poverty in the US. In the era of the creditby ProjectC - Project C
The Dilbert Strategy - By Paul Krugman - 15 years ago
"...As I said, America’s financial crises have been getting bigger. A decade ago, the market disruption that followed the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management was considered a major, scary event; but compared with the current earthquake, the L.T.C.M. crisis was a minor tremor." The Dilbert Strategy By PAUL KRUGMAN March 31, 2008 Source Anyone who has worked in a largby ProjectC - Project C
The Paulson plan: Goodbye OTS, CFTC, and FDIC, hello FIGC, PFRA, and CBRA - By Justin Fox - 15 years ago
By Justin Fox March 29, 2008 Source Hank Paulson is going to make a speech Monday about what our financial regulatory system ought to look like. But the WSJ, NYT, WaPo, and LAT already have all the details. (Not a word yet in the FT, interestingly enough.) This latest of several "Paulson plans" (the full "executive summary" is here) is not directly a response to the crby ProjectC - Project C
End of Era - By Doug Noland - 15 years ago
"Some argue rather forcefully that we’re now immersed in “debt deflation.” I understand the basic premise, but to examine double-digit growth in Bank Credit, GSE “books of business” and money fund assets provides a different perspective. To be sure, our Credit system continues to provide sufficient Credit to finance massive Current Account Deficits. And it is this ongoing flow of dollar lby ProjectC - Project C
Germans Fear Meltdown of Financial System - By SPIEGEL Staff - 15 years ago
"...Should the state use taxpayer money to help greedy bankers repair the damage caused by their unscrupulous speculation? Should it invest billions to save ailing financial institutions, thereby engendering new risks and side effects? And should the government, to use the words of a Frankfurt investment banker, "treat a drug addict with cocaine"? ... ...the banks have becomeby ProjectC - Project C
This crisis could bring the euro centre-stage - By Wolfgang Münchau - 15 years ago
By Wolfgang Münchau March 24 2008 Source We know the credit crisis is a clear and present threat to the global economy. But its most important long-run legacy may not be economic, but geopolitical. I was reminded of that possibility when reading a recent analysis by Professors Menzie Chinn at the University of Wisconsin and Jeffrey Frankel of Harvard*. They ran a simulation showing that tby ProjectC - Project C
Turkey seeks a more modern Islam - By Fazile Zahir - 15 years ago
"We are not here as Turkish Muslims to put ourselves in the service of Islam, but to put Islam in the service of life." - Fethullah Gulen, Turkish Islamic scholar and writer By Fazile Zahir Mar 27, 2008 Source FETHIYE, Turkey - The level of surprise with which the world's media greeted the news that Turkey's highest religious authority, the Diyanet, has instructed a cby ProjectC - Project C
Let the Russians sort out Russia - By Rodric Braithwaite - 15 years ago
"George Kennan, that great Russia-watcher, got it right when he wrote in 1951, at the height of the cold war: “When Soviet power has run its course . . . let us not hover nervously over the people who come after, applying litmus papers daily to their political complexions to find out whether they answer to our concept of ‘democrats’. Give them time; let them beby ProjectC - Project C
What Created This Monster? - By Nelson D. Schwartz and Julie Creswell - 15 years ago
'TWO months before he resigned as chief executive of Citigroup last year amid nearly $20 billion in write-downs, Charles O. Prince III sat down in Washington with Representative Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Among the topics they discussed were investment vehicles that allowed Citigroup and other banks to keep billions of dollars in potential liabilitiby ProjectC - Project C
Nationalization - By Doug Noland - 15 years ago
'Surging demand for U.S. Treasuries is causing failures to deliver or receive government debt in the $6.3 trillion a day market for borrowing and lending to climb to the highest level in almost four years." -- Liz Capo McCormick, Treasuries' Scarcity Triggers Repo Market Failures, March 20, 2008 *** "First of all, there is the issue of a problematic dislocation in theby ProjectC - Project C
A Real Freak Out - By Jim Kunstler - 15 years ago
By Jim Kunstler March 17, 2008 Source Note: This is the official publication week of my new 'post-oil' novel, "World Made By Hand," a vivid depiction of life in The Long Emergency. Visit the book's website: Things are getting very weird very fast -- and will probably get even weirder, faster, as the train wreck of bad debt meets the Saint Paddy's Day Paradeby ProjectC - Project C
Arthur C Clarke, writer and futurist, dies at 90 - By Sarah Knapton - 15 years ago
"His forecasts often earned him derision from peers and social commentators." Arthur C Clarke, writer and futurist, dies at 90 · Heart failure kills creator of 2001: A Space Odyssey · Author's forecasts proved uncannily accurate By Sarah Knapton Wednesday March 19, 2008 The Guardian Source Arthur C Clarke, the pioneering science fiction author and technological vby ProjectC - Project C
Why today’s hedge fund industry may not survive - By Martin Wolf - 15 years ago
"...With the “right” fee structure mediocre investment managers may become rich as they ensure that their investors cease to remain so." Why today’s hedge fund industry may not survive By Martin Wolf March 18 2008 Source Hardly a week goes by without the implosion of a hedge fund. Last week it was Carlyle Capital, with an astonishing $31 of debt for each dollar of equity. Bby ProjectC - Project C
Sorry, I wasn’t pessimistic enough! - By Martin Hutchinson - 15 years ago
"It is clearer now than it was a year ago that losses in housing debt will not be isolated. They will lead to losses in credit cards, leveraged corporate loans, automobile loans and most areas of the credit economy. Even emerging market debt, at first sight insulated from the problem, is in practice endangered by its concentration in Latin America and Russia, both dependent either on the USby ProjectC - Project C
Does Shariah mean the rule of law? - By Noah Feldman - 15 years ago
"Was it to be hoped that the stern spirit of religious enthusiasm, allying itself with the–keen instinct of civil liberty, would endue the provinces with strength to throw off the Spanish yoke?" - J. L. Motley ( The Great Bell Roland - 1540 ), The Rise of the Dutch Republic. *** "To many, the word "Shariah" conjures horrors of hands cut off, adulterers stoned anby ProjectC - Project C
(Ukraine) Investors council a progressive step - 15 years ago
The Khazar Empire. J. *** Investors council a progressive step By E.Morgan Williams Mar 06 2008 Source The Ukrainian government should be applauded for the actions it has taken to improve the business climate, such as the partial payment of long overdue value-added tax (VAT) refunds in late January and the move to finalize membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Oby ProjectC - Project C
Wishing for Another Z.1 - By Doug Noland - 15 years ago
"To be sure, the Credit Crisis has accelerated to a ferocious clip. Last week it was a “white shoe” hedge fund leveraged in “AAA” securities that imploded. Earlier this week, a “white shoe” firm listed (in Europe) fund that had been leveraging in “AAA” Fannie and Freddie securities imploded. Today, one of Wall Street’s white shoe firms required a Fed-assisted “bailout” to at least temporaby ProjectC - Project C
Going, going, gone: a rising auction of scary scenarios - By Martin Wolf - 15 years ago
"Suppose, then, that Prof Roubini were right. Losses of $2,000bn-$3,000bn would decapitalise the financial system. The government would have to mount a rescue. The most plausible means of doing so would be via nationalisation of all losses. While the US government could afford to raise its debt by up to 20 per cent of GDP, in order to do this, that decision would have huge ramifications. Weby ProjectC - Project C
Going Going. . . . - By Jim Kunstler - 15 years ago
By Jim Kunstler March 10, 2008 Source The feigned cluelessness in Paul Krugman's Sunday New York Times column ("The Face-Slap Theory") about the meltdown in finance is a good index of the cringing mendacity now emanating from those in service to the centers of power. I doubt an editor, or the publisher, Mr. Sulzberger, had to whisper in his ear to soft-pedal the situatioby ProjectC - Project C
A reply of Nouriel Roubini on Martin Wolf's article - 15 years ago
“This is not a crisis of “crony capitalism” in emerging economies, but of sophisticated, rules-governed capitalisms in the world’s most advanced economy. The instinct of those responsible will be to mount a rescue and pretend nothing happened… Worse, the institutions that prospered on the upside expect rescue on the downside. They are right to expect this. But this can hardly be a tolerable bargaby ProjectC - Project C
(UK) Clueless generation need to do the maths - 15 years ago
By Rosemary Bennett, Social Affairs Correspondent March 10, 2008 Source They are the media-savvy generation, but teenagers are not so sharp when it comes to money. A study involving 8,500 teenagers from all social backgrounds found that most of them are financially illiterate. More than three quarters could not identify the cheapest loan. They also grossly overestimate their future earninby ProjectC - Project C
(Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicl) Huge space truck races into orbit - 15 years ago
"The hardware that is used to lift the samples off the surface of the Red Planet would need to meet up in orbit with the propulsion unit which would carry it home. The technology for this in-orbit assembly might be derived from ATV know-how. And there may even be a grander application - one not lost on the Nasa chief Mike Griffin. "It occurs to me that it's a fairly short steby ProjectC - Project C
Europe - By Winston Churchill - 15 years ago
"...If Europe is to be saved from infinite misery and indeed from final doom, there must be this act of faith in the European family this 'act of oblivion against all crimes and follies of the past. Can these peoples of Europe rise to the heights of the soul and of the instinct and spirit of man? If they could, the wrongs and injuries which have been indicted would have been washed awayby ProjectC - Project C
Double Bubble Trouble - By Stephen S. Roach - 15 years ago
"The United States is now going through its second post-bubble downturn in seven years. Yet this one stands in sharp contrast to the post-bubble shakeout in the stock market during 2000 and 2001. Back then, there was a collapse in business capital spending, a sector that peaked at only 13 percent of real gross domestic product. The current recession has been set off by the simultaneous buby ProjectC - Project C
The Credit Default Swap Market - Will It Unravel? - By Satyajit Das - 15 years ago
'The CDS market entails complex chains of risk. This is similar to the re-insurance chains that proved so problematic in the case of Lloyds. The CDS markets have certain similarities with the reinsurance markets. The CDS fees like the reinsurance premiums are received up front. In both cases the risks are both potentially significant and "long tail" - they do not emerge immediatelyby ProjectC - Project C