Here are some 52-week returns on investment for share indices from Bloomberg. They show how much you would have lost in the last year if you had invested in each basket of shares. FTSE 100: -30.93% European 500: -39.84% DJ Euro Stoxx: -37.19% DAX: -35.67% Dow Jones Industrial Average: -32.73% […]
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Bail out blogosphere round up
The root cause of the credit crunch (video) Where’s an icepick when you need one? The Big Lie This Morning Labour to Implement 1983 Manifesto Pledges So, They’ve Finally Achieved Their 1983 Election Manifesto Exclusive to Rob’s Blog: Gordon Brown to Guarantee Everything FTSE crashes — I hope you’ve learnt your […]
Read MoreEurope’s bank bail-outs: Beggar thy neighbour
Expecting an announcement from the Chancellor in the morning, I found this: While governments on mainland Europe were trying to save their banks, Iceland was trying to save the country after it had overextended itself trying to bail-out its banking system. Its economy had been doing well, but its banks […]
Read MoreMises.org: Financial Crisis and Recession
Via mises.org, from an article by the brilliant Jesús Huerta de Soto: The artificial expansion of credit and money is never more than a short-term solution, and often not even that. In fact, today there is no doubt about the recessionary consequence that the monetary shock always has in the […]
Read MoreFT.com: Government action fails to halt global sell-off
Today, the FT reports: London’s FTSE 100 fell 5.6 per cent, or 281 points, to 4,699.6. The renewed fall took the benchmark index 100 under its closing low point for the year and beneath the 4,700-point mark for the first time since 2004. Germany’s Xetra Dax 30 was 5.5 per […]
Read MoreFT.com / David Cameron: “We will help give banks the capital they need”
David Cameron writes in the FT: This financial crisis is a challenge for our political system. Political parties and the independent financial authorities must show the character and judgment necessary to make the right decisions under pressure. Our response will have profound implications for the future prosperity of the country. […]
Read MoreThe US Community Reinvestment Act
Further to the Spectator article previously reported, many people have picked up on the US Community Reinvestment Act: The CRA was passed by the 95th United States Congress and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 as a result of national pressure for affordable housing. In Congressional debate […]
Read MoreTelegraph: So much for tirades against American greed
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on the prospects for the European Union as the crisis develops: The euro fathers did not dispute that the euro might not survive a crisis, but they saw EMU as an instrument to force the pace of political union. They welcomed the idea of a “beneficial crisis”. As […]
Read MoreMoney: Its Importance, Origins, and Operations
A classic book we should all read: it’s next on my list. So prices, overall, can change for only two reasons: If the supply of money increases, prices will rise; if the supply falls, prices will fall. If the demand for money increases, prices will fall (PPM rises); if the […]
Read MoreSpectator: the Democrats are to blame for the credit crunch
From The Spectator, recognition that intervention has caused this crisis: Our current financial turmoil is not the fault of greedy bankers, says Dennis Sewell. In fact, the banks were bullied into lowering their lending standards by left-wing idealists intent on equal opportunities at any cost read more | digg story
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