If anyone
is having a bad day, remember that in 1976 Ronald Wayne sold his 10% stake in
Apple for $800.
* * *
The one time I visited ECB's HQ in 2003 I remembered the Kaiserstrasse as the main street on the heroin- and red light-area, with the sidewalks filled with idle multikulti and Albanian three card monti stands.
A fitting location.
* * *
The one time I visited ECB's HQ in 2003 I remembered the Kaiserstrasse as the main street on the heroin- and red light-area, with the sidewalks filled with idle multikulti and Albanian three card monti stands.
A fitting location.
Previously on MoreLiver’s:
22.9. Disregard This Post (links to euro breakup analysis)
21.9. Weekender: Weekly Support (weekly reviews and previews)
EUROPE
EUROPE: GENERAL
Euro zone to boost bailout fund firepower to 2
trillion euros – Reuters
Euro zone states are preparing to allow the
bloc's permanent bailout fund to leverage its capital in the same way as its
predecessor so it can reach a capacity of more than 2 trillion euros and rescue
big countries if necessary, Der Spiegel said on Sunday.
Speech by Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive
Board of the ECB at the Palestinian Public Finance Institute Ramallah, 23 September 2012
The Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s
shows what can happen when economists misdiagnose a crisis. This column argues
the Eurozone crisis may have been made worse by over-simplifying it as a debt
crisis. The author suggests that the large institutional changes now afoot –
the shift from Eurozone I to Eurozone II – are finally addressing the root
causes, but they may be too little too late.
Remarks on banking union – BIS (pdf)
Fernando Restoy, Deputy Governor of the Bank of
Spain, at the round table "Systemic risk and securities markets", II
International Conference on Securities Markets, held by the Comisión Nacional
del Mercado de Valores (CNMV), Madrid, 14 September 2012.
Will Germans Pick Up the Tab for Deutsche Bank,
Too? – View
/ BB
Deutsche Bank is too big to fail both in terms
of its direct involvement with the national economy and the potential knock-on
effect on confidence in German industry. But the bank can fail in the sense
that it could require future taxpayer assistance. To determine how likely this
is -- and the scale of potential losses at any bank -- you need to answer three
questions.
Huge swaths of assets are allowed to vanish,
making too-big-to-fail financial institutions seem leaner and safer than they
are.
Is Mario Monti Going to be the ‘Next’ Italian
Prime Minister? – EconoMonitor
Investors and political leaders around the
world are very worried that the new government that will emerge from the next
Italian elections in April 2013 will not be headed by Mario Monti, nor pursue
the “Monti Agenda” of structural reform and fiscal discipline. The worries are
well founded, for several reasons.
Intelligence chief: EU capital is 'spy capital' – euobserver
EUROPE: SPAIN
Spain is considering freezing pensions and
speeding up a planned rise in the retirement age as it races to cut spending
and meet conditions of an expected international sovereign aid package, sources
with knowledge of the matter said.
Spain's original deficit target for 2012 was
4.4%, then revised to 5% then 5.3%. The last revision brought the target all
the way up to 6.3%. So how is Spain doing?
The ruling parties of Catalonia have sought guidance
from Brussels on the legality of secession from Spain, requesting a “route
map” for membership of the European Union and the euro as an independent state.
Why a Spanish Approach to the ESM Will Help – PIIE
EUROPE: GREECE
An EU-IMF report into whether Greece's debt is manageable
looks set to be delayed until after November 6 because policymakers want to
avoid any shock to the global economy before the U.S. election, EU
officials and diplomats said.
Troika Calls Week’s Truce in Haggling Over
Greek Budget – BB
The euro crisis began 30 months ago. The cheers
for each new solution proved unwarranted. Likewise the fears of the skeptics,
as the periphery nations have held together under horrific stress. So far. Here
we look at public sentiment in Greece.
EUROPE: ECB
ECB in 'panic', say former chief economist
Juergen Stark – The
Telegraph
The
European Central Bank is in "panic" over the eurozone crisis and
acting outside its mandate with its new bond-buying plans, the bank's former
chief economist said in comments published Saturday.
USA
Paul Volcker on Greedy Bankers, the Ryan Plan,
and the Fed – Newsweek
Legendary economist Paul Volcker speaks out on
what’s wrong with Wall Street today, the Ryan plan, and the Fed’s bold moves.
Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve
chairman credited with taming the inflationary threat of the 1970s, has warned
that further quantitative easing will fail to repair economies in Europe and the US.
Rethinking Robert Rubin – Businessweek
(audio) World Weekly with Gideon Rachman – FT
Middle East turmoil and the US response: what recent
events say about the internal stability of post-revolutionary Libya and Egypt and President Obama’s
policy towards the Middle East. How will these and the other regional concerns in Syria, Iran, and the Palestinian
territories affect the US election?
The good news: Several big banks have finally
started taking steps to reform Wall Street’s out-of-control compensation
system, which rewards bankers and traders with big bonuses for taking insane
risks with other people’s money. The bad news: These banks are in Europe, and most of their U.S. cousins still just
don’t get it.
Pent up demand for new homes is bringing
home-builders back to life – Sober
Look
USA: FED
QE Infinity: Unintended Consequences – John
Mauldin / The Big Picture
Back Ben Bernanke's QE3 with a clothes peg on
your nose – The
Telegraph
Monetarists from across the world can mostly
agree on one thing. The US Federal Reserve
caused the Great Recession.
Q-Infinity and Beyond! – Cognitive
Concord
QEs compared – alphaville
/ FT
Deutsche Bank’s Alan Ruskin comparing the effects of QEs 1, 2 and 3.
Deutsche Bank’s Alan Ruskin comparing the effects of QEs 1, 2 and 3.
Spread between US mortgage rates and agency MBS
yields hits a record as "transmission" remains an issue – Sober
Look
There was a tense and unscripted moment at the
opulent Harvard Club of New York City this week when Richard Fisher, the
otherwise elegantly spoken head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, seemed poised to
insult one of the club’s good members.
ASIA
The Next Panic – The
Atlantic
Europe’s crisis will be followed by a more
devastating one, likely beginning in Japan…For ordinary Japanese, public
promises about retirement benefits and price stability will be broken just as
their private savings collapse…Our financial systems appear to be returning to
their inherently unstable nature, which plagued the 19th and early 20th
centuries.
BOJ's money printing is offset by households'
cash hoarding – Sober
Look
This is exactly why deflation so dangerous.
Cash becomes the best investment as deflation makes it "worth more"
over time…For now however BOJ will need to continue its perpetual QE program
just to keep up with all the cash hoarding by households.
China: For Many Expats, It's Not Worth It – Businessweek
Morgan Creek Capital Asks: Is China A Real Estate Bubble? – market
folly