banks

Early today, I wrote a fairly upbeat piece on the European sovereign debt crisis for gold members. The overall gist here is that fiscal union is now coming. And while it remains to be seen who will be a part of that union, the implication…

The ratings agency Moody's issued the following statement earlier today in connection with its ratings review of the German banking sector. The outlook for Germany's banking system remains negative, says Moody's Investors Service in a new…

The following is the rationale for the ratings action Standard and Poor's took earlier today in downgrading the sovereign debt ratings of Spain Overview     -- The deepening economic recession is limiting the Spanish government's policy…

The banks are slowly admitting losses, but Bloomberg's summary is of a slow recognition. Even so, writedowns have left the banks stranded: unable to make loans. Up until now, it appears, the banks and the government were able to carry the…

Nouriel Roubini and Ian Bremmer were on “Bloomberg Surveillance” this morning talking about the economy and the upcoming election in the U.S. A partial transcript and video are below.  The headline story is that Nouriel believes that too…

Two weeks ago I told you that Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s humiliating defeat to Merkel had narrowed options to sovereign bailout, monetisation or default for Spain. Now that the Spanish bank bailout is unraveling and Catalonia is…

Editor's note: The FDIC released the following press release today in conjunction with findings by the FDIC's Committee on Economic Inclusion to Discuss Strategies to Expand Access. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) today…

I note that several of the policy mistakes listed above date back to the same period, namely the late 1990s. Not only does it demonstrate the gung-ho approach of the time, but it also goes to show that policy mistakes do not necessarily…

Last week I promised to provide a little more insight into what the ECB is doing with its OMT program and what this should mean for the euro, economic growth, and European sovereign bond markets. This weekly post is dedicated to that theme.…

Here are my first quick reactions to the ECB's new monetisation scheme. They have decided to buy bonds on the secondary market in potentially unlimited quantities up to three-year maturities for countries that submit to a Troika program.…