Iceland

This post title may not seem relevant right now. But, let me explain it first. I was looking through my post drafts folder this morning, deleting ones that never made it to publication. And this post title popped up as having been…

It's early days. So I wouldn't call this a crisis. What I would say, however, is that the Fed's rate hike train is doubly negative for the emerging markets. We can see the effects in Argentina and Turkey in particular.

Depositors in Eurozone banks are facing a steep learning curve on just exactly what deposit insurance means. This column points out that the precedents set in Cyprus and Iceland show that deposit insurance is only a legal commitment for…

Cyprus has imposed temporary capital controls. This column sheds light on how temporary and how damaging they are likely to be, based on Iceland’s experience. The longer controls exist, the harder they are to abolish. Icelandic capital…

Quick post here to continue the theme of Christine Lagarde doing a complete makeover of the IMF. Yesterday, the Financial Times reported on an IMF staff paper that accepted capital controls as a necessary evil in specific cases, a sharp…

The Spanish banking system is insolvent and the Spanish government simply does not have the wherewithal to clean it up. This is the problem in Spain that has come to a head, particularly now after the rescue of Bankia, Spain's fourth…

This daily commentary is a bronze-level post. Today's comment is on the Irish desire to get their tracker mortgage obligations written down.

A friend commented to me when he saw the story that Iceland had been upgraded by Fitch, the ratings agency, that this "sure makes default look palatable". Obviously, Iceland is not out of the woods yet but their relative success says there…

Financial news links for 3 January 2012. I posted this first link on twitter yesterday afternoon and it got a ton of retweets. I have seen a lot of people link out to it. Bottom line: the concept that bankruptcy is part and parcel of…

This appropriation of the economic surplus to pay bankers is turning the traditional values of most Europeans upside down. Imposition of economic austerity, dismantling social spending, sell-offs of public assets, de-unionization of labor,…