2011

According to Louis Hernandez, U.S. government policy is geared toward the too big to fail banks and this undermines community banks and Credit Unions which serve small and medium sized businesses. His contention is that there is a vast…

By Win Thin Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega announced new FX measures at his press conference, but at first blush are quite underwhelming. The 6% IOF tax on local entities was extended for overseas loans with maturities up to 2…

The private sector (particularly the household sector) is overly indebted. The level of debt households now carry cannot be supported by income at the present levels of consumption. The natural tendency, therefore, is toward more…

I was on Business News Network with Rob Cox of Reuters Breakingviews yesterday. We were talking to Howard Green about all things economic. The video clip is linked below. But let me say a few words about the discussion. One of the two…

Since the financial crisis hit in 2008, excess reserves have piled up in the U.S. financial system. There were almost no excess reserves in the system during the period of recorded data from 1959 onwards. But after the post-Lehman…

By Claus Vistesen Events in Japan and Libya do not seem to have derailed the ongoing positive sentiment in the market. But they just might have alerted various Masters of the Universe that black holes (or was that swans?) are both…

BBH CurrencyView US dollar continues to weaken ahead of tomorrow's ECB and BoE meeting UK manufacturing much weaker than expected; Swiss CPI exceeds estimates Euro remains resilient ahead of ECB meeting; Portugal raises…

In a White House meeting intended to break the impasse, John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, instead pushed for deeper spending cuts as part of a deal that would keep the government running past a Friday…

In the wake of a sovereign debt ratings downgrade by the rating agency Moody's, Portuguese five-year bonds are trading with a yield of 10%. As a result, Portugal has leapt over Ireland into fourth place on the credit default swaps list of…

By Marc Chandler The BOJ's rep office in NY invited a number of analysts to meet the Deputy Director of the stats office and hear a presentation about the economic impact from the recent disaster. The key take away points from the…