financial history

I have posted the chart below from Chart of the Day before. The previous time I pointed out that there are three super cycles in the chart and the current super cycle is much different from the two previous ones if March 9, 2009 was the…

This is the third in a series of posts on the origins of the Euro crisis. "The roots of the European sovereign debt crisis go back thirty years" and "How Belgian debt, Italian anarchy and Greek profligacy lead to economic…

Let's attack the question of hyperinflation using Zimbabwe and Weimar Germany as examples. These are the two most extreme cases of hyperinflation that economic historians have ever witnessed. They are instructive regarding what causes…

The news about Greece's bailout has me thinking a lot about Creditanstalt, the Austrian bank which collapsed in 1931. This account bears remembering because we should see the 1929-1933 descent as a two-part episode, with the second part…

Marc Faber spoke with Bloomberg News recently and had some interesting things to say about China and what he sees a burgeoning bubble. His sentiments echo those from Ten ways to spot a bubble in China by Edward Chancellor, author of a…

Here are a few interesting tidbits from the Wall Street Journal from around this time in 1931. I missed this one, but it is pretty good historical info. 16 April 1931 Head of Spanish provisional govt. N. Zamora pledged Spain will be…

Just yesterday, a Special Investigation Commission report was released in Iceland which criticized the handling of the country's top three banks and the crisis that ensued when they collapsed. Seven top officials were said to have acted…

Marshall Auerback here with some further thoughts from the Institute for New Economic Thinking’s recent kick-off conference at Cambridge University. It might appear ironic to commence a conference ostensibly centered on new economic…

William White, the former chief economist at the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) gave an important speech at George Soros' Inaugural Institute of New Economic Thinking (INET) conference in Cambridge.  While everyone is casting…