financial history

From the site News from 1930: National City Bank notes epidemic of bank failures, and that “processes of deflation operate in a vicious circle” but is nevertheless optimistic: “obviously this sort of thing has to come to an end some…

By now you have heard that Dubai World, the investment company, has asked its creditors for a six-month delay in repaying its debt (see articles in links).  This is what is commonly referred to as default. Now many are wondering if…

Here's a nice little music video on Alan Greenspan and all that he has wrought. Hat tip Scott.

My post title is an ode to Yves Smith, who likes to feign surprise when the blindingly obvious finally comes into plain view for all to see. The latest sign that underneath the surface weakness remains at large financial institutions comes…

Video embedded below. See also Democratic Rep. DeFazio Calls for Geithner and Summers to Be Fired - Yves Smith

Hat tip Rolfe Winkler.

This excerpt comes from the blog News from 1930 which gives us a day-to-day account of what was being reported in 1930 before the worst of the Great Depression hit. “The unemployment situation in New York is critical. Unless it is…

The US Department of Agriculture highlights how the United States in the last decade, despite increased aggregate wealth, slid back significantly in terms of food insecurity as measure of poverty. With everyone now focused on the…

Hong Kong’s leader Donald Tsang has come out with a scathing criticism of U.S. monetary policy, comparing it to Japan’s which he believes contributed to 1997’s Asian crisis. This is the most direct and strident criticism of the U.S. Federal…

I have said on a number of occasions that a sovereign nation that issues debt in its own fiat currency cannot default involuntarily.  The case most people point to as a counterfactual is Russia in 1998.  I mentioned Russia in a…