In truth, the developed world is facing not one crisis, but three. There is a debt crisis. The developed world has been building up debts on a spectacularly scale over three decades. In the UK, total debts, adding up what individuals, companies and corporations owe, have reached a towering 450 percent of GDP. According to [...]
Ratings firm Fitch downgraded six major global banks Thursday, citing increased challenges in their business and the prospect of financial turmoil ahead. Fitch lowered the long-term ratings on Bank of America and Goldman Sachs in the United States, British bank Barclays, French bank BNP Paribas, German bank Deutsche Bank and Swiss bank Credit Suisse. The [...]
Some of the world’s most powerful investment banks were downgraded by ratings agency Fitch as Germany’s cherished European fiscal compact appeared to be unravelling. The banks that were downgraded last night include US banks Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, Barclays and France’s BNP Paribas. Switzerland’s Credit Suisse and Germany’s Deutsche Bank were also cut. [...]
In the southeastern Chinese province of Guangdong, a village is under revolt. Residents of Wukan, population 20,000, have been protesting the sale of their lands by local officials for months. The dispute escalated after the local government announced that Xue Jinbo, a villager who had been detained last week on suspicion of participating in a [...]
National sovereignty over basic political choices is being outsourced By now, it’s obvious that adopting the euro was a colossal blunder. It may rank as Europe’s worst policy mistake since World War II. The virtues of the common currency — it reduced transaction costs and the uncertainty of fluctuating exchange rates among national monies — [...]
Are we on the cusp of depression and world war? The Euro continues its collapse and worldwide debt and government obligations have long passed the point of no return. Now we may have the spark that launches the full scale crisis The reckoning. The reckoning is coming. The reckoning is coming for all. The past [...]
Tuesday’s New York Times continues its excellent coverage of Europe’s debt crisis by turning to Greece–the most weakened and vulnerable economy on the continent. It raises questions about the potential consequences of a return to the drachma. The picture isn’t pretty—involving bank runs, freezes on moving capital abroad, surging unemployment, rising prices and falling currency [...]
“A grim bulletin of Russian Ministry of Defence issued to Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev states that the Chinese President Hu Jintao has agreed in principal that the only way to stop the West’s aggression led by the US is through direct and immediate military action,” Dr Kamran discussed, adding that Russian General Nikolai [...]
In a new note this morning, Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid argues that “austerity is making it harder for countries to grow out of their debt burden,” comparing the current measures to those which stalled economic recovery during the Great Depression. While that may finally provoke a “dramatic ECB treaty change” or “fiscal European union,” even [...]
Commentary: Market crash, political gridlock, revolution, new class wars America’s deaf. In denial. When we predicted the 2011-2020 “decade from hell” we didn’t see the big macro events dead ahead: Arab Spring virus that’s now Occupy Wall Street, promising to explode into an even more powerful force in 2012 … war on the middle class [...]
Commentary: Without more capital, banking dominoes wobble Europe’s banks look to be on the brink of collapse. Don’t take my word for it. The Bank for International Settlements issued its quarterly report on Monday. And the outlook is more than just gloomy. “The intensification of the euro-area sovereign-debt crisis went hand in hand with banking-sector [...]
Armageddon. Deep down, this is the one everyone expects and even wishes for. In this outcome, Germany does nothing but block the European Central Bank (ECB) from creating the inflation Europe needs to wheedle its way out of its immense debt woes. The weak countries default and bail out of the euro, setting off a [...]
Today, America rewards the wrong people and spends disproportionately on projects of the past. Symptoms of the flawed incentive system in the U.S. economy include a massive fiscal budget deficit, high unemployment rate, crumbling infrastructure and a failing basic education system. International competition isn’t threatening the United States, but internal problems are. And unless the [...]
