Bank bailouts have made owners of otherwise worthless bank debt whole through a circuitous process by which taxpayers transferred their money to investors. Even in Greece. Even a bank that had siphoned off $1 billion through fraud and embezzlement. It wasn’t fair. But fairness had nothing to do with it. That’s how bailouts were done. Until now.
Central Banks
Lies, Damned Lies, And Banks: Deutsche Bank Caught Again
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Lies, Damned Lies, And Banks: Deutsche Bank Caught Again
Deutsche Bank, long coddled by the German government, is mired in “matters” from Libor rate-rigging to carbon-trading tax-fraud. Now a new “matter” seeped out: the bank had known for years about the impact of commodities speculation on food prices and the havoc it wreaked on people in poor countries. And it lied about it to the German Parliament.
By Midyear, Europe ‘Can No Longer Live With This Euro’
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on By Midyear, Europe ‘Can No Longer Live With This Euro’
“I’m sitting on cash,” Felix Zulauf said when he was asked in an interview where he was putting his money. With decades of asset management experience under his belt, he’d founded Zulauf Asset Management in Switzerland in 1990. But now he was worried—and has turned negative on just about everything.
What Ferrari’s Glorious Results Tell Us About The World
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on What Ferrari’s Glorious Results Tell Us About The World
The announcement couldn’t have been more glorious in crisis-struck Italy: Ferrari booked records sales and profits in 2012. Dazzling in every aspect. Not a single cloud darkened the horizon. Except in Italy where sales collapsed. And in the rest of the world, where central-bank printer ink stained the records.
Corporations Are Begging: We Need More Inflation!
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Corporations Are Begging: We Need More Inflation!
Hasbro, second largest toymaker in the US, confessed it would miss revenue estimates. Christmas wasn’t kind. Despite “double digit growth” in emerging markets, revenues fell by 2% for 2012 and by 3.8% for the quarter. Other corporations are in a similar predicament. But substantive inflation would have covered it up—not that the Fed hasn’t been trying.
“The Euro Will Blow Up Europe Instead Of Bringing It Together”
by Wolf Richter • • 7 Comments
“I cannot be disillusioned because I no longer have any illusions about Europe,” muttered Euro Group President Jean-Claude Juncker last week after the horse trading over Greece’s bailout had failed once again. But he isn’t the only one who lost his illusions. “There are better alternatives to the bailout policies of Chancellor Merkel,” declares the man who’ll run against her in 2013; alternatives that “protect taxpayers and don’t only benefit the banks.”
Lehman Brothers Rears Its Ugly Head In Germany
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Lehman Brothers Rears Its Ugly Head In Germany
A Lehman Brothers kerfuffle erupted, this time in Germany, in broad daylight. With a stunning amount: up to €800 million ($1.04 billion) in fees for the insolvency administrator. It blows away the German record of €70 million. Hedge funds are raising a ruckus, on the surface to shame the insolvency administrator into backing off. It worked. Almost. But suddenly, there are new allegations—against the hedge funds.
The Curse Of The “Irreversible” Euro
by Wolf Richter • • 4 Comments
Young educated Greeks face a wall of unemployment. With little chance of finding a job in their field, they’re competing for any kind of job. Wages have plummeted. The economy has shriveled by 19.4% since 2007. Promises that education would open doors to a better future have evaporated. And Germans march around, telling Greeks how to run their country. Because the euro has become a religious dictum.
Bundesbank Slaps Fed In The Face
by Wolf Richter • • 2 Comments
“Yellen and Cisco lift US stock futures,” the headline read enticingly in the morning. Priceless. Their pronouncements were driving up the markets. But by the time the markets closed, the manipulative power of Fed Vice Chairman Janet Yellen had dissipated; the DOW was down 1.45%. And across the Atlantic, the German Bundesbank issued a tough warning about the very policies Yellen was propagating.
Unintended Consequences Of Bailouts: Greece Gets Slammed
by Wolf Richter • • 6 Comments
Bailouts have become known for their so-called “unintended consequences”—however intended they might have been. And now, unintended consequences strike again. The ECB’s purchase of decomposing Greek debt—an under-the-radar bailout of banks and insurance companies—are making the favorite solution to the Greek crisis, namely another deep haircut, legally impossible, says Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann.