banks

You should notice that the title of this post is “make accounting gains” instead of “earned” because it is not clear at all that US banks earned $29 billion. After all, the FDIC has indicated that these accounting gains are driven by lower…

Each new version of the European debt crisis will spook the bond markets yet again. When you look at the economies of the euro-peripheral countries, it is hard to see how they can dig themselves out without a great deal of pain and serious…

As James Galbraith has argued, the problem is said to be no more serious than some clogged plumbing. A bit of Drano in the form of government handouts and guarantees should be sufficient to get credit flowing again. Nonsense. Private debt…

Banks are never constrained by reserves or reserve ratios. Banks are capital constrained. In our fiat money system, the central bank uses reserves in the system to help the Federal hit a target interest rate. So, the central bank provides…

Voters in Iceland have rejected their government’s attempt to foist on them the costs of bailing out foreign creditors. Should voters in Ireland too?

Below is a PDF copy of the Portuguese Memorandum of Understanding for the EU - IMF bailout. Portuguese interest rates have fallen somewhat on the news of the bailout, to the lowest levels in fifth months.

The global crisis has called into question how banks are run and how they should be regulated. Highly leveraged banks went under, threatening to drag down the entire financial system with them. Here, David Miles of the Bank of England’s…

In April 1989, Mexico's external debt negotiator, Angel Gurria, asked his country's commercial bank creditors for a 55 percent haircut. This was the opening pitch of the newly created Brady Plan, which finally addressed both the debt…

Bernanke’s QE2 program has hurt savers, done nothing for banks, and eviscerated middle class living standards.

By William K. Black cross-posted from New Economic Perspectives In the Savings and Loan (S&L) debacle Speaker Wright became enraged at the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and the Department of Justice when he learned that the FBI was…