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Crisis2008 - Bernard A. Lietaer
To avoid a domino effect of massive layoffs and bankruptcies, the most urgent action for businesses to take is the initiative of creating a Business-to-Business (B2B) mutual credit system at whatever scale makes sense to them. The WIR system (see six page synthesis paper for details) is a successful precedent of this strategy implemented in Switzerland since 1934.
PERI - Political Economy Research Institute: : Setting an Agenda for Monetary Reform
The monetary policy that culminated in the current crisis and the failure of the Federal Reserve’s efforts to end the credit freeze in 2008 are critical components of the analysis needed as a backdrop for reform. This working paper argues that the link between excess liquidity, the buildup in debt, the asset bubbles that debt created and the financial crisis that followed are outcomes of monetary as well as regulatory policy failures
High and Low Finance - Bankers Point to the Rules as the Problem - NYTimes.com
If mark-to-market accounting is to blame for the current financial crisis, then the National Weather Service is to blame for Hurricane Katrina; if it hadn’t told us the hurricane hit New Orleans, the city would never have flooded.
Steve Keen’s DebtWatch No 31 February 2009: “The Roving Cavaliers of Credit” | Steve Keen's Debtwatch
Argues against the standard view of fiat-money creation by government and in favor of a credit-money view where banks drive the growth of the money supply.
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Thus rather than credit money being created with a lag after government money, the data shows that credit money is created first, up to a year before there are changes in base money. This contradicts the money multiplier model of how credit and debt are created: rather than fiat money being needed to “seed” the credit creation process, credit is created first and then after that, base money changes.
The True Cost of Credit | What does your card cost?
Calculates the cost of credit cards to merchants.
Open Left:: Maddow: Did America Get Punked On the Bailout? Yes...Now Here's What to Do.
The report found that among small businesses "no "credit crunch" has appeared to date beyond the normal cyclical tightening of credit." The NFIB found that worries about interest rates and financing were a concern to only 3% of respondents...By and large, the story of the NFIB report was that if credit is going untapped, it's largely because company operators are not choosing to pursue the credit. It's not that companies can't get the extra money, it's that they don't want or need it because of the broader slowdown in economic activity.
Grasping Reality with Both Hands: The Semi-Daily Journal of Economist Brad DeLong: Liquidity, Default, Risk
Things are even worse as far as the risk discount is concerned. In normal times, our models predict, with the ability to diversify portfolios that exists today the risk discount on assets like corporate equities should be around 1% per year. It is more like 5% per year in normal times—it is more like 10% per year today. And our models for why the risk discount has taken such a huge upward leap in the past year and a half are little better than simple handwaving and just-so stories. Our current financial crisis remains largely a mystery: a $2 trillion impulse in lost value of securitized mortgages has set in motion a financial accelerator that we do not understand at any deep level that has led to ten times the total losses in financial wealth of the impulse.
Interfluidity :: Should "bad" financial contracts be banned?
Flawed financial instruments only become policy issues when people responsible for investment on a significant scale decide that what they don't know won't hurt them. This can happen by virtue of fads and fashion, the madness of crowds: consider internet stocks, or blind faith in diversification and "stocks for the long run". But most poor investment, in dollar-weighted terms, is not taken by foolish individuals placing their own money. Bankers and institutional investors are on the one hand granted the power to control investment on a very large scale, and on the other hand make consistently awful choices. Delegated money, rather than trading off return and safety, often trades return for safe-harbor. Absurd contracts that appear to offer high returns are very attractive to money managers of all stripes, if they offer a veneer of safety and "prudence", or better yet, if they become conventional.
Interfluidity :: Is the Prime Rate a Scam?
When I was a kid, the "prime rate" was something they announced on the news like it was something important. They don't do that any more, because the prime rate no longer is important. The prime rate is supposedly "the interest rate charged by banks to their most creditworthy customers (usually the most prominent and stable business customers)". But the most prominent businesses no longer benchmark their loans against the prime rate. They use LIBOR instead. Only consumer and small business loans are typically indexed against Prime. LIBOR became prominent, well, around the early nineties I think.
Marginal Revolution: Where is the Credit Crunch?
Back in February I pointed out that despite all the talk of a credit crunch commercial and industrial loans were at an all-time high and increasing. At the time, Paul Krugman and others responded that this was just temporary as firms drew on previously existing lines of credit. Well here we are in September and bank credit continues to look very robust. As Robert Higgs points out consumer loans are up, commercial and industrial loans are up, even real estate loans are up. Overall, total bank credit is up with just a slight sign of leveling off in recent weeks. So where is the credit crunch?
Prescreened Offers of Credit and Insurance
links and phone numbers to opt out of credit card offers
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