Africa’s colonial history, present state of being and promising future is the subject of a new book, Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles. African journalist and author Richard Dowden discusses his book, which focuses on sub-Saharan Africa. He also weighs in on the “Frontier” Markets, Trade and foreign investment opportunities in African nations such as Nigeria and Ghana, among others; as well as the political climate in nations, such as Zimbabwe.
No one, including British economist John Williamson himself, could have predicted the viral-like application of one of his own political theories when he first introduced the term “Washington Consensus” in 1989. What was once simply applied to a grouping of commonly shared “policy instruments” used by Washington-based financial institutions like the IMF, World Bank […]
According to developing reports, six of the nation’s largest banks have failed the Federal ‘Stress test’ and may require additional capital to remain in business. The Gov’t rather than giving more bailout aid is considering converting Preferred shares into common equity shares, thereby effectively “Nationaling” the banks by making the Federal government the largest single shareholder in each company.
Domestic & Global Economic impact of the Swine Flu pandemic, and links to helpful resources.
I found the coverage of this item by the New York Times (NYT) of real interest, and amazingly reminiscent of a post I wrote several days ago about the emergence of America’s ‘New Oligarchs’ — the ‘Titans of Wall Street’. Now, it appears, U.S. Treasury Secretary and former New York Federal Reserve Bank President, Timothy F. Geithner, […]
America’s unique ‘national character‘ — the common underlying values and patterns of thought that gives our nation its “flavor” — is under assault as we re-think what we, as a nation, think about the use of torture; the role of government (the ‘Good guys’) in our lives and the social security it provides; the nature of 21st-century […]
I call them the ‘Titans of Wall Street,’ others refer to them as the ‘Lords of Finance,’ and there are books outlining their pillaging exploits. Either way, they amount to the same thing when this phenomena occurs in Russia, India, China, Argentina or late 19th-century Victorian England — we are now, in America, living in a Plutocracy, and the […]
By William Cohan From the Financial Times, April 22 2009. So, what do all the $12.7bn (€9.8bn, £8.7bn), and counting, in first-quarter profits from what used to be known as Wall Street add up to? Have the past two years been one giant head fake, despite what we have been led to believe? Is […]
. . . and resorting to ‘accounting tricks‘ to solve the problem of systemic risk and the failures of the financial crisis is not the answer. Why..?? I read about an interesting anecdote at a House Financial Services Committee hearing last month, so I looked it up (see the video below). Robert Herz of the Financial […]
JPMorgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, in a 1Q Report letter to shareholders, blamed the economic crisis on the Iraq war and investor freed. Interestingly, culpability by Wall Street risk-taking, accounting tricks, insolvent balance sheets, deregulation, toxic assets, short-selling, corporate welfare, ‘self-regulatory’ schemes and other financial industry misdeed was conspicuously missing from Mr. Dimon’s analysis.
Joeseph Stiglitz, a highly regarded former chief economist of the World Bank and Nobel laureate in global economics, says the Obama administration’s plan to fix the U.S. banking crisis is destined to fail because the programs have been designed to coddle Wall Street rather than creating a viable 21st century financial system.
“All the ingredients they have so far are weak, and there are several missing ingredients,” Stiglitz said in an interview. The people who designed the plans are “either in the pocket of the banks or they’re incompetent.”
Paul Krugman, Princeton professor and New York Times Op-Ed columnist, won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity. I started paying attention to Prof. Krugman’s work after his Nobel prize, including his recent book “Conscience of a Liberal”. But more accessible than his […]
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