A rainy Sunday game of Trivial Pursuit provided the claim that bananas are the fourth most important food commodity after rice, wheat and maize in terms of production value. This UN report confirms the fact. And that reminded me of an article in the Journal of The Institute of Economic Affairs, Fair […]
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Britain’s bankers plumb new depths – Times Online
Via Britain’s bankers plumb new depths – Times Online : Jon Moulton, the private equity chief, warned a City lunch this week that he feared serious civil unrest. There was, he said, a 25 per cent chance of one of the 15 member countries of the eurozone pulling out of the currency […]
Read MoreSome Banks Want to Return Government Money – NYTimes.com
Even before the [US] government announced its latest efforts to fix the troubled banking industry on Tuesday, executives at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley said they wanted to repay the money quickly. Both banks received $10 billion under the first rescue plan last fall. Paying back all those funds would […]
Read MoreFT.com / UK / Business – Danger in bank bill, warn lawyers
Further attacks on the classic understanding of the rule of law, under which legislation should not be retrospective: A new law aimed at staving off banking crises would give the authorities dangerously wide scope to intervene in struggling institutions on grounds of public interest or financial stability, lawyers warned. The […]
Read MoreFT.com / UK – Brown calls for bonus clawbacks
Again Gordon Brown forgets that people were often paid in shares: Britain’s financial regulator should be able to force failing bankers to hand back their bonuses, Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, said on Thursday. Amid rising public and political anger over the scale of bankers’ bonus pay-outs, Mr Brown said […]
Read MoreGordon Brown: We are ‘sweeping away’ bonus culture of City banks – Telegraph
In a classic case of state intervention begetting state intervention: Executives at RBS, which is 70 per cent owned by the state, are pushing to pay their staff nearly £1 billion in bonuses, even though the bank needed a £20 billion capital injection from the Government to prevent its collapse […]
Read MoreVladimir Putin attacks Western rescue packages – Times Online
“Interference of the state, the belief in the omnipotence of the state: That is a reaction to market failures,” Mr Putin said in his keynote address at the opening of the four-day meeting. “There is a temptation to expand direct interference of state in economy. In the Soviet Union that […]
Read MoreA 40-Year Wish List – WSJ.com
The Wall Street Journal considers the US stimulus bill: [B]y our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus. And even many of these projects aren’t likely to help the economy immediately. […]
Read MoreBank bail out roundup
The Chancellor announces his bank bailout plan, but has no idea how much money will be needed to stave off collapse of the sector and the economy: more. The Telegraph commentator Liam Halligan argues that the rescue has failed, that banks must fully disclose their liabilities and that losses must […]
Read MoreMoney, the free market, circulating credit, deflation and sound money
Via A Golden Way Out of the Monetary Fiasco – Thorsten Polleit – Mises Institute, essential reading for anyone interested in the financial crisis, its causes and a route out (despite its use of the G-word!): The government-controlled monetary regime — the most destructive force set into motion by state interventionism […]
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