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Showing posts from December, 2014

Stress Test - an Education in Crisis

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"There's no way to solve a financial crisis without creating some moral hazard, without protecting investors and institutions from some of the consequences of excessive risk taking. They were, in Ted Truman's phrase, collateral beneficiaries of an effective emergency program. It was impossible to design an effective rescue for the intended beneficiaries -- the people who lived and worked in those countries -- without some collateral beneficiaries" [p. 67] Extract from Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises by Timothy F. Geithner, Crown/Random House, 2014.

Geopolitics and Finance this Week

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Au dessus de Vitebsk (1915-1920) - Chagall ·        Europe Central Bank: QE or not QE? o    This week the QE club has gained one new and serious supporter: Ewald Nowotny, governor of the Austrian Central Bank. Österreichs Notenbankchef Ewald Nowotny kann sich für den in Deutschland heftig umstrittenen Kauf von Staatsanleihen durch die EZB erwärmen. Für #Nowotny ist das Risiko einer ruinösen Abwärtsspirale aus fallenden Preisen und einer abschmierenden  #Konjunktur  sehr real  #Nowotny 08.12.2014, 13:52 von Reuters  - Notenbank-Chef Nowotny offen für Staatsanleihenkauf o    Yet on the short term, attentions and worries, might be focused on Greece. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras asked Greece's parliament to bring forward the presidential vote by more than two months to December 17. Failure to elect a new president by the end of the year would force snap elections that could bring the Sy...