Monetary System

Over the weekend the Danish Central Bank took over bankrupt Roskilde Bank, wiping out shareholders. Tiny Denmark has had a bankruptcy on its hands that is following the script of Northern Rock in the UK to a tee: After lending too much…

Not if you believe the figures from a University of Calgary - C.D. Howe Institute study comparing tax rates in 80 countries - remember, they're Canadians (hat tip Stephen Gordon). In this list, which includes all the major economies, the…

The last place in the world you wold expect to hear support of Ben Bernanke is hear. The Bernanke Fed has been as reckless in its attempts to reflate the economy as the Greenspan Fed - probably more so. Nevertheless, when Willem Buiter, a…

The bankrupt Danish Bank Roskilde received no bidders as the Central Bank of Denmark looked to unload the bank as quickly as possible. Roskilde got into trouble after the Danish economy turned down and loans it had made to home builders…

Below are the latest writedown stories from the web that I have seen. For the full timeline of news, visit my credit crisis timeline. Bloomberg recently updated their tally of writedowns to arrive at $503.8 Billion to date. That is on…

The Beijing Olympic games are supposed to be China's coming out cotillion. As the west struggles with deleveraging and recession, China wants to make a statement that it has arrived. The games have gone off remarkably well and most…

The minutes of the Bank of England's most recent Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting demonstrate that Britain's monetary policy makers are all over the shop. Most committee members voted to keep rates at 5%, but there was also a vote…

Apparently, Lehman Brothers was looking to strike a deal with a Korean Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) for a whopping $5 billion, but the deal fell through -- this according to the NY Post.Lehman Brothers' embattled Chief Executive Dick Fuld…

Talk about ugly, American Home Mortgage, an outfit which went bust two days before the credit crunch hit a year ago, is now liquidating. We knew equity holders were going to get zippo, nada, zilch, but what about creditors of the mortgage…

Kenneth Rogoff, the Harvard Professor and former IMF Chief Economist shares my view that another large U.S. financial institution will go bust. I predicted this will happen before the end of 2008. He gives no specific date, but he does go…