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The only lesson we ever learn is that we never learn - By Robert Fisk - 16 years ago
"On our historical radars, not even Crassus appeared, the wealthiest Roman general of all, who demanded an emperorship after conquering Macedonia – "Mission Accomplished" – and vengefully set forth to destroy Mesopotamia. At a spot in the desert near the Euphrates river, the Parthians – ancestors of present day Iraqi insurgents – annihilated the legions, chopped off Crassus'sby ProjectC - Project C
The fearful lives in a land of the free - By Robert Fisk - 16 years ago
Westerners assume that anyone with a Canadian passport is safe By Robert Fisk Saturday, 5 April 2008 Source I was given the chance to talk to 600 Muslim Canadians a few days ago. The dinner was in an Ottawa banqueting room and the guests also included the imam of the Ottawa mosque, the Ottawa chief of police and sundry uniformed Canadian army officers. The imam sat between me and the Cby ProjectC - Project C
Bernanke Grapples With Greenspan as Volcker Scorns Fed Bailouts - By Steve Matthews - 16 years ago
"In his April 2 testimony, Bernanke pointed out that the Federal Reserve was created in 1913 in response to another market meltdown, the Panic of 1907. On March 14 of that year, exactly 101 years before the Fed's Bear Stearns intervention, the stock market fell 8.3 percent, touching off a number of bank failures. ... ``One of the reasons we are in this particular predicament is beby ProjectC - Project C
International financial system was close to the brink - Credit Suisse ex-CEO - 16 years ago
Thomson Financial News April 20, 2008 Source ZURICH (Thomson Financial) - The international financial system was close to the brink in March when joint action by the U.S. Federal Reserve and JP Morgan Chase & Co. avoided the collapse of investment bank Bear Stearns, Credit Suisse Group's ex-CEO Oswald Gruebel said. The breakdown of the comparatively small investment bank would hby ProjectC - Project C
Saudis put oil capacity rise on hold - By Carola Hoyos - 16 years ago
By Carola Hoyos in Rome April 20 2008 Source Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil producer, has put on hold any plans to further increase long-term production capacity from its vast oil fields, its most powerful policymakers have said. In a series of statements, including one by the king himself, the kingdom has warned consumers it does not reckon there is a need for further expansion, aby ProjectC - Project C
Lessons from the Great Depression Part VII - By Dr. Housing Bubble - 16 years ago
By Dr. Housing Bubble April 10th, 2008 Source This is going to be a rather long post but I think it warrants a full reading. These excerpts were written in 1935 during the Great Depression. They give us a look at an overall perspective of what happened both politically and economically to exasperate the current situation. The parallels are uncanny and of course, we are in different times, yeby ProjectC - Project C
Setting the Backdrop for Stage Two - By Doug Noland - 16 years ago
By Doug Noland April 18, 2008 Source - (Comment: Deflation In A Fiat Regime? - By Mish ) Martin Feldstein, Harvard professor and former chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, wrote an op-ed piece in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal – “Enough with Interest Rate Cuts” – worthy of comment. “It’s time for the Federal Reserve to stop reducing the federal funds rate, becauseby ProjectC - Project C
Long Valuation Waves 3 - By Adam Hamilton - 16 years ago
"But imagine if we lived on an outer planet where the seasons were longer, such as Saturn if it didn’t have such a wickedly hostile environment and actually had solid ground. If we had grown up under the stunningly beautiful rings of that planet, our seasonal perceptions would be radically different. This is because Saturn, since it is so far away from the sun, takes a whopping 29 Earth yeby ProjectC - Project C
The Madness of Ben Bernanke - By Gabor Steingart - 16 years ago
By Gabor Steingart in Washington April 14, 2008 Source The dollar is in a tailspin, the trade deficit is growing and a recession is on the horizon. The American way of life is in serious danger. But the head of the Federal Reserve keeps on pumping easy credit into the system -- a crazy policy that will worsen the crisis. Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke have more in common with the big caby ProjectC - Project C
The degradation of accounting - By Martin Hutchinson - 16 years ago
"In other words, the structure of finance, like the principles of accounting, needs to revert at least 40 years; probably, in the United States, 80 years." The degradation of accounting By Martin Hutchinson April 14, 2008 Source Martin Hutchinson is the author of "Great Conservatives" (Academica Press, 2005) -- details can be found on the Web site www.greatconservby ProjectC - Project C
Greenspan critics: One voice stands out - By Neil Reynolds - 16 years ago
( Rothbard - America’s Great Depression (pdf) ) "Another explanation comes from the Austrian School of economics. Austrian theorists who wrote about the Depression include Hayek and Murray Rothbard, who wrote "America's Great Depression" in 1963. In their view, the key cause of the Depression was the expansion of the money supply in the 1920s that led to an unsustainable crby ProjectC - Project C
The Face of a Prophet - By Louise Story - 16 years ago
By LOUISE STORY April 11, 2008 Source George Soros will not go quietly. At the age of 77, Mr. Soros, one the world’s most successful investors and richest men, leapt out of retirement last summer to safeguard his fortune and legacy. Alarmed by the unfolding crisis in the financial markets, he once again began trading for his giant hedge fund — and won big while so many others lost. Mr.by ProjectC - Project C
Brace for $1 Trillion Writedown of `Yertle the Turtle' Debt - Review by James Pressley - 16 years ago
"Expect the landslide to cascade through high-yield bonds, commercial mortgages, leveraged loans, credit cards and -- the big unknown -- credit-default swaps, Morris says. The notional value for those swaps, which are meant to insure bondholders against default, covered about $45 trillion in portfolios as of mid-2007, up from some $1 trillion in 2001, he writes. ... CMOs transformed thby ProjectC - Project C
IMF head calls for global action on turmoil - By Krishna Guha - 16 years ago
By Krishna Guha in Washington April 6 2008 Source Government intervention at a global level is required to tackle the credit crisis, according to the head of the International Monetary Fund, who has warned that market turmoil will take a serious toll on world growth. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF managing director, told the FT: “I really think that the need for public intervention is becomiby ProjectC - Project C
Dimon Rejected Rescuing Bear Until Geithner Promised Funding - By Peter Robison - 16 years ago
"The testimony provided the most extensive account yet by participants in the largest U.S. rescue of a securities firm. Dimon, New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke defended the bailout while some lawmakers said it only rewarded risky market bets. The officials compared the turmoil they feared that weekend to the Panic of 1907 and the Great Depressby ProjectC - Project C
Soros predicts end of the road for cheap and easy borrowing - By Stephen Foley - 16 years ago
"It is not going to be like the 1930s – we are not going to allow financial institutions to fail – but this is a historic event like the Great Depression was." -- George Soros Soros predicts end of the road for cheap and easy borrowing By Stephen Foley in New York Saturday, 5 April 2008 Source The City of London faces a severe recession and the UK economy is set to followby ProjectC - Project C
The financial fairytale of Goldilocks and the credit bears - By Gillian Tett - 16 years ago
"Personally, I would love to believe in the Goldilocks scenario. However, history is sadly not on the side of this fairytale. After all, very few episodes of deleveraging have occurred in the banking sector before in a manner that was "just right". Stand by, in other words, for plenty more market lurches - accompanied by plenty more growling from the credit bears, as investorby ProjectC - Project C
Economic Structure and the "Liquidationist Thesis" - By Doug Noland - 16 years ago
"There were astute thinkers during the twenties who believed the economy was being severely distorted from a protracted inflationary period that had commenced during the (first) World War. Although it was not manifesting in consumer prices (because of new technologies, products, overheated investment, etc.), excessive money and Credit were fueling dangerous inflationary Bubbles in asset pricby ProjectC - Project C
Bankers in search of a new business model - By James Saft - 16 years ago
“You’d probably have to go back to the 1930s to get something quite as bad.” -- James Davis Bankers in search of a new business model Seismic shift coming in how banks make and sell loans; focus on underlying assets By James Saft April 4, 2008 Source Reuters—However long or deep the credit crisis turns out to be, it will change the business of investment banking profoundly, probaby ProjectC - Project C
Rising Grain Prices Panic Developing World - By Ariana Eunjung Cha - 16 years ago
By Ariana Eunjung Cha Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, April 4, 2008; Page D01 Source SHANGHAI -- A spike in the price of rice and other food staples is triggering consumer panic, including food riots in Yemen and Morocco, and hoarding in Hong Kong. Governments around the world have taken radical measures in recent weeks to control their countries' supplies of rice. Egypt lasby ProjectC - Project C
It's not easy being a billionaire - By Michael Johnson - 16 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 - 16 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 - 16 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 - 16 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 - 16 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 - 16 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 - 16 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 - 16 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 - 16 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 - 16 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