What if the negative interest rate policies (NIRP) that have been adopted by major central banks had effects opposite what was intended? The idea is to fight DEflation and to nudge consumers to spend by penalizing banks for keeping money on deposit. The theory is that banks will lend rather [continue reading . . . ]
I can’t help but think what’s going on in global markets seems like a re-run of what happened in the fall of 2008, when Lehman Brothers failed, banks had to be bailed out and the worst recession since the Great Depression ensued. AP business writer Alex Veiga neatly sums up [continue reading . . . ]
A correspondent who heard my comments on Cyprus on KUOW’s Weekday program today asks: I am puzzled by some of your comments this morning. As I understand it, when a bank in the U.S. fails, the FDIC moves in and closes it. The accounts are protected by insurance up to [continue reading . . . ]
What to call the period that arguably began in 2006 when the rich world’s housing market peaked? The Financial Times (FT) in a Lex column May 13 uses a term I have not seen before: “Lesser Depression.” The U.S. economy typically rebounds strongly following a recession. The 1974-75 and 1981-82 [continue reading . . . ]
As reported in today’s New York Times, convicted Florida mortgage fraudster Lee Farkas related this anecdote about doing business with his commercial banker, Catherine Kissick of Colonial Bank: “One day she was at the McDonald’s drive-in, and I asked her for a hundred — which meant a hundred million — more, [continue reading . . . ]
Martin Wolf of the Financial Times introduced me years ago to the idea that the white-shoes banks (think Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Credit Swiss) play by different rules than you and me. They privatize gain (taking enormous bonuses when times are good) and socialize loss ( by [continue reading . . . ]