Monetary System

The market awaits for the European Bank Supervisors to provide more details about the stress tests.  If the market has a better sense of the robustness of the stress tests it might lift some uncertainty among investors. There are…

It seems so if you read the latest from the Financial Times (hat tip Marshall Auerback): Iceland's banking sector is facing a fresh wave of losses after a court ruling raised doubts over the legality of billions of dollars of loans.…

Below is a very entertaining interview with Howard Davidowitz on financial reform and the credit crisis with Aaron Task and Henry Blodget of Tech Ticker (hat tip Scott). Davidowitz says don't expect any substantive changes, especially…

Joseph J. Cassano, head of what was formerly an obscure 400 employee division of American International Group (AIG) with main offices in London, called AIG Financial Products (AIG-FP), testified today before the FCIC (Financial Crisis…

A post on the latest economics debates by Claus Vistesen Steve Waldman has a very good post this week about the folly about the austerity vs non-austerity discussion which seems to be going the rounds at the moment. In fact, it you take a…

While most people are tuned in to the failure of the ruling coalition in Germany to get their man Christian Wulff elected president, there are other more important numbers out today. Unemployment in Germany fell to 7.5% in the last month.…

Below is a partial list of May 2010 FDIC enforcement decisions and orders. I have only included cease-and-desist orders, prompt corrective action notices and termination of insurance orders as these are the signs of banking system distress.…

I fully support deficit spending as a means to prevent a debt deflationary spiral in a deep downturn.  However, there are limits to what stimulus can actually do. Stimulus is no panacea for an unbalanced economy. In particular, when…

Blog post series, like the vuvuzela, is the new bacon; it works with everything and with John Hempton’s recent excellent series on the economics of default in the Eurozone and Edward Hugh’s recent postings on AFOE in which he pulls out…

In this video from the Wall Street Journal, Sheila Bar talks to the Journal's David Wessel explaining her view that the financial reform bill due to be passed by Congress will end too big to fail. Also see the associated WSJ article,…