It’s not the big money-centre banks in Wall Street you have to worry about. It’s the smaller regional and community banks. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation shut four more of them over the weekend. That’s 20 for this year, which is a lot less than the 140 last year. But if you wanted to see a spike in U.S. bank failures, you’d definitely raise interest rates.
February 22nd, 2010 | Dan Denning | 41 comments | ContinuedAll Posts Tagged With: "policy makers"
Modern World Economy is Built on a Foundation of Unsound Money
Now just because Ben Bernanke and the global cabal of counterfeiters don’t want something to happen doesn’t mean it won’t happen anyway. The deflating of the reflated asset bubble is going to happen sooner or later. The world’s massive inverse pyramid of debt is supported by a very small asset base.
February 5th, 2010 | Dan Denning | 5 comments | Continued
Chinese Government Expected to Sign Off on Second Stimulus Package
Chinese bank lending and credit growth is already through the roof. Last year’s $685 billion stimulus program sent fixed asset investment in China much higher. It was, by most accounts, hugely supportive of resource prices, and thus most welcome in Australian resource circles.
December 4th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 8 comments | Continued
Banks Could Face Larger Asset Writedowns and Losses than IMF has Modelled
Next time around, though, we reckon the losses – when they come – will be on domestic real estate assets. And with so much exposure to domestic real estate (mortgage loans), the assets could face a world of hurt. But even if bank asset quality doesn’t crash (housing prices don’t crash), an external shock affects Aussie bank liabilities.
October 28th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 2 comments | Continued
Separating the Short-term Trends in Financial Markets from the Long-term Trends in Geopolitical History
The Dow Jones slipped under 10,000 at the end of the day Wednesday largely because analyst Dick Bove changed his call on Wells Fargo from “neutral” to “sell.” Bove said the quality of the company’s third quarter earnings was, “pretty poor.” “If you take a close look at the earnings, what you can see is that the improvement is due to a hedging profit…
October 22nd, 2009 | Dan Denning | 4 comments | Continued
Gold Price Should Continue Going Up as the Dollar Accelerates its Terminal Decline
But first, just a reminder about the gold conference in Canberra November 2nd through 5th in Canberra. You can read about it here. Space is limited, so if you’re keen to go, you’d better move fast. Your editor will be there too, for the first time, and is looking forward to a world-class line up of speakers on gold as money and gold investments.
October 2nd, 2009 | Dan Denning | 6 comments | Continued
The Challenge of a Balance Sheet Recession
In a world where Austrian School precepts held sway, the dog would be allowed to exhaust itself and start out fresh, facing less-distorted relative price signals that eventually would lead to a more productive set of behaviors. Debts that could not be supported…
July 29th, 2009 | Rob Parenteau | 0 comments | Continued
Mortgage Bubble and More at Stake Between Australia and China
Two other items of note in yesterday’s housing numbers. The First Home Buyer’s consolidated their position as the most important group propping up Australian house prices. First home buyers increased their percentage of total owner-occupied mortgage demand from 28.6% in April to 29.5% in May. Nearly a third of all demand for new mortgages is coming from new buyers sucked in by the grant. Hmmn.
July 9th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 5 comments | Continued